


The Ties That Bind

by TrueIllusion



Series: Stories from the "Changed" Verse [7]
Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Angst, Co-workers, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, Protective Brian Kinney (Queer as Folk), Workplace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-06-03 04:20:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 32,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19456237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrueIllusion/pseuds/TrueIllusion
Summary: I know what Brian is doing -- he’s being protective of me, the same way he always has been. That’s just his nature; he’ll do anything for his friends, and he never wants to see anyone he cares about get hurt, physically or otherwise. But I’m a big girl, and I can take care of myself.***Cynthia and Brian are more than just co-workers; they're friends. Family, really. But how will they support one another when push comes to shove?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to SandiD and PrettyTheWorld for all of the support, brainstorming, and the beta work to help me make this story the best it could be! <3
> 
> The time frame of this story overlaps with "Near Life Experience," "My Father's Son," and "Comfortable," adding to the series plot while simultaneously filling in gaps and exploring already-mentioned details from other points of view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One year ago today, I posted the first fanfic I had written in about fifteen years, in a fandom I had never written for, a mere 24 hours after I started writing the story. I never would have dreamed that a year later, I would have more than 500,000 words written and published -- close to 600,000. But, here we are, thanks in large part to the support and encouragement of the readers of this fandom. I love and appreciate you all so much, and I thank you for giving my stories a chance. <3

I lean back in my chair and tilt my head to the side, examining the artwork on my computer screen as Christina -- the creator of said artwork -- leans across the desk to point out a change she made in her most recent edit of the Uncork New York campaign.

“I decided to switch out the photo,” she says. “It’s pretty similar to the last one, but I thought this one was more candid. They really look like they’re having a good time.”

“They’re at a wine tasting; they should be having a good time,” I laugh. “Nice job. I love it.”

Christina settles back in her own chair, giving me a shy smile as she says, “Thanks.”

“Send it to Josh and tell him to have it printed. They’re scheduled to meet with us on Friday. I want you to sit in on the meeting, too, so they can know who the genius was who came up with the visual for this campaign.”

“I don’t know about genius.” Christina says, looking down and biting her lip.

“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re good. It’s why I brought you to New York.”

Truth be told, I’d been impatiently awaiting Christina’s college graduation ever since she started as an intern with Kinnetik in Pittsburgh two years ago. She was this quiet college girl who kept to herself, but her work truly spoke for itself, and she never shied away from a project, even when the entire art department was afraid to take it on. She was independent, good at what she did, always got the job done without needing anyone to hold her hand, and best of all, the clients loved her work. And in spite of her quiet disposition, she wasn’t afraid of Brian either, the way most of the art department is. She’d stand up for her work when needed, and Brian respected her for that; he still does. She more than proved her worth to the company during her year as an intern, so as soon as she got her diploma last December, I told Brian I wanted her here with us in New York, and he agreed.

“I still can’t believe I’m here in New York,” she says, shaking her head. “Living in Manhattan. I’ve lived my whole life in Pittsburgh, and I really thought I’d be stuck there forever.”

“Are you kidding? With your talent? You’re too good to be stuck in the Pitts.” I’d picked up Brian’s often-used moniker for our hometown years ago, because it seems to fit. Sometimes Pittsburgh really _is_ the pits.

Yeah, my mom still lives there -- which might be its only saving grace at this point -- and I miss her, but I don’t think I’ll ever talk her into moving to New York because she likes having a driveway and a big backyard with a huge garden where she spends hours tending to flowers and vegetables every spring and summer. So I still go back occasionally to visit her, but other than that, there’s no big draw.

The dating scene seems to be one area in which Pittsburgh’s nickname fits particularly well, although even after more than a year in New York, I’m still not sure that the scene in the Big Apple is much better. The pool is much larger, sure, and a lot more diverse, but there are still plenty of jerks, deadbeats, and sleazeballs to be had. Not that I _need_ a man to feel validated or worthy -- I don’t -- but I like to have fun and I like to meet people, and I like sex. And if I find the man of my dreams -- the one who doesn’t want kids, who just wants to travel and see the world and go to fancy restaurants and theatre shows and generally enjoy the finer things in life -- then that’s great. But even if he continues to elude me, I’m still going to have fun in the process.

Christina and I are going over a couple of things for some other campaigns we’re collaborating on, when we suddenly hear a lot of coughing coming from the direction of the semi-private bathroom that connects Brian’s office and mine. It’s the one he had put in when we first started leasing this office space -- with all of the adaptations he needed to make it functional for him -- and it just so happened that taking a little bit of space off of both of our office suites was the only way to make it work. But it had to be done, since he refuses to share a bathroom with the rest of the staff. (And honestly, I can understand why, even though we don’t really talk about things like that. Let’s just say that a girl can learn a lot through observation. And if one wants to learn much of anything about Brian Kinney, one has to be good at observation, because he’s not giving anything up easily. He never has.)

“Is he okay?” Christina asks, obviously concerned.

I roll my eyes and wait for the hacking to stop before I reply. “If you ask him, he’ll say he’s fine.”

That’s Brian’s standard answer for every situation that might make him seem vulnerable or, dare I say, human: “I’m fine.” Even when it’s painfully obvious that he’s not fine. And this is certainly one of those times. He’s been coughing all day, with our only reprieve being when he was out for a lunch meeting with a client, who probably wondered why he hadn’t canceled. But that’s just Brian -- when he gets sick, he spends the majority of his time either pissed off or trying to pretend that he isn’t sick. At this point, he’s spent the last two weeks oscillating between the two, and I’m about to lose my patience.

“Go ahead and send these image files over to Josh when you get back to your desk,” I tell Christina. “We’ll talk later about the meeting. In the meantime, I’m going to try to convince the boss to go home.”

Christina laughs as she gets up from her chair. “Good luck,” she says, smiling. Even in her short time with the company so far, it seems she already knows Brian pretty well.

“Oh, don’t worry. I have my ways.” I wink at her as she walks out of my office, and I hear Brian start up again not even a second later. I slip my stilettos back on my feet before I get up from my chair and straighten my skirt, then walk out of my office, throwing my shoulders back like I mean business, because I do. I stand at Brian’s office door while I wait for this particular coughing fit to end, and he’s gulping down water when I knock on the door frame to let him know I’m there. He motions for me to come in and sets the water bottle down on his desk.

“What’s up?” he asks, his voice hoarse, as I take a seat in one of the chairs that sits in front of his desk.

“You need to go home.” I don’t have time to waste, so I’m cutting right to the chase here.

“I stayed home for two days last week.”

“Yeah, and you’re still sick.”

“I’m fine.”

I fight the impulse to roll my eyes again, because I knew he was going to say that. “You’re not fine.”

“Blame Justin,” he says, not really arguing with my assertion that his previous statement was wholly untrue. “He works in a fucking germ farm.”

“Then how do you explain the fact that Justin isn’t sick, and you are? You could have picked this up anywhere -- a door handle, elevator buttons, the coffee shop you go to every morning. And as much as you’d like to believe you’re superhuman, you are every bit as susceptible to viruses as the rest of us mere mortals.”

“This has to be some kind of mutant superbug, I swear.” Brian stifles a cough and takes a swig of water. “I can’t get rid of it. Justin’s been making me green smoothies every morning, and I swear I’ve been eating my vegetables. I even bought a fucking $10 bottle of cold-pressed juice this morning instead of my latte. I’ve tried everything.”

“Everything except actually resting.” I know I sound bored, and it’s because I am -- I’ve heard every single one of Brian’s excuses before, a million times over. But I’m letting him get it out of his system before I pull out the big guns.

“I don’t have time. The deadline for this ad is Thursday.”

“And we’ve got it covered. It’s basically done -- it’s just finishing touches now. I can take care of making sure that gets done, so you can take care of _you_. Go home, sit in a hot shower for a while, and go to bed. Take a nap.”

Brian opens his mouth to protest, but quickly finds himself in the throes of yet another coughing fit. I purse my lips and look up at the ceiling, waiting for it to be over, and I know that I’m right. What he needs is to go home and rest. I’m worried about him, but I also know that Brian tends not to respond well to such emotions being openly directed at him, so I’m choosing to stick with my “bored-slash-annoyed” countenance for this particular encounter. When Brian finally manages to catch his breath, he drinks even more water, then tilts his head back and closes his eyes for a moment. “Christ,” he says. “I can’t fucking breathe.”

“All the more reason to go sit in that hot shower. And honestly, you should probably see a doctor.”

“It’s just a cold. They can’t do anything for a cold.”

“I think we’re way past ‘cold’ at this point. Colds turn into other things sometimes, you know. Again, you’re human.”

“I hate doctors. All they do is lecture me.”

“Maybe because you don’t listen to them. Alas, sometimes they’re a necessary evil.”

Brian sighs, and I half expect him to launch into another coughing fit, but he doesn’t. “I know,” he says quietly, and he’s not looking at me, so I know I’ve probably won. But, just in case, I fire off my parting shot anyhow.

“You have one hour to wrap up what you’re working on now, and then I’m calling Damon to tell him to lock your computer down.”

“Fuck you.” Brian looks up at me, meeting my hard stare. “You wouldn’t do that and you know it.”

“Try me. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll call Justin. Frankly, I’m surprised he let you come in today, if you sounded anything like this earlier.”

Brian sighs and looks away again, and I wonder if perhaps he and Justin already had a similar conversation this morning. “Alright,” he says. “But just for today.” He pauses, then adds, “Maybe tomorrow.”

“Definitely tomorrow,” I counter. “I’m busy too, and I can’t fucking concentrate with all of your hacking and coughing. So if you won’t think of yourself, at least think of me.”

“Your alternative could be unemployment.” Brian quirks his eyebrow upward and looks at me, as if to say, “your move.”

“Just try a day without me.” I smirk, because I know he won’t object to that. He can barely stand it when I’m on vacation. “And this isn’t going to be like the two days you spent at home last week, where you kept right on working. I don’t want any phone calls or emails, nor do I want to hear about any phone calls or emails from you going out to any other employee. For the next 36 hours, you are resting. Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal.” He attempts to stifle another cough, but quickly loses the battle, ending this round with a groan and an arm wrapped around his torso.

“I’m calling a car for you,” I say, as I get up from my chair and start toward the door. “I’ll tell them to be here in an hour.”

“Make it thirty minutes,” I hear him say behind me, and I can’t help but smile to myself on my way out.

“Sure thing,” I say, turning back to face him. “I’ll see you Friday.”

I shake my head as I make my way back to my own office, still amazed at how stubborn Brian can be. But I suppose that’s one of the secrets to his success -- he never gives up on anything. At least, not very easily, and probably not until he’s forced to. But after more than two decades of working for him or with him, I’m fairly well-versed in the “Kinney Operating Manual,” as Justin calls it, and I know exactly how to push Brian’s buttons to get him to do what he needs to do, even when he doesn’t necessarily want to do it.

As I sit back down in my chair, I’m already making a call to the car service we contract with. They agree that someone will be at the front door to our building in about a half an hour, and I’m just about to shout that in the direction of Brian’s office when he starts coughing again. This time, it’s followed by a string of expletives, and I’m really just hoping that he’ll actually rest when he gets home, though I have my doubts.

Thirty minutes later, Brian is gone and the office is a hell of a lot quieter. I click around a little on my computer until I’m in the folder where the images for Remsen’s new print campaigns reside, and I’m not the slightest bit surprised that I don’t really see anything that can be improved upon, even though I’m sure Brian has spent the last few hours -- save for his lunch meeting -- overanalyzing them. But that’s just Brian, and it always has been. Once upon a time, it was why he was so good at what he did, because it meant he saw things other people didn’t, but now, twenty-plus years later, with his own hand-picked and hand-trained staff to take care of every last detail, it’s just overkill.

I double-check the copy -- because the last thing I’d ever want to do is give Brian more ammunition to prove the necessity of his never ending overanalysis if there actually _was_ a typo -- then send everything on to the publisher, declaring it finished, even though I’m sure Brian would have continued to torture himself until he found one more thing to tweak. But that’s the difference between him and me -- he’s a consummate perfectionist, and I’m more focused on efficiency.

By 4 p.m., I’m already looking forward to the date that I have planned tonight -- dinner and drinks on the Upper West Side with the guy I’ve been seeing for a couple of months now, Richard. Brian doesn’t like him, but honestly, I don’t really give a shit what he thinks. It’s not that I don’t love Brian, but let’s face it, his point-of-reference when it comes to love and dating is a little bit questionable at best, and a fucking disaster at worst.

I still remember the years before he met Justin, back when he was going out every night and fucking everything that moved and had a dick. And I also remember the slow process of all of that changing, as Brian came to terms with the fact that Justin really did love him, and maybe -- just maybe -- he could love Justin back and everything would be okay. Of course, that journey was anything but linear, and it involved a lot of ups and downs and setbacks and a whole lot of pissed-off, angry-at-the-world Brian as a cover for sad-and-lonely Brian, but I’m thankful that, in the end, they found their way back to each other. Honestly, I think they were just meant to be from the beginning. There was something different about Justin all those years ago, and some part of Brian knew it, even though it took him a long, long time to admit to it. I think those of us who had been with Kinnetik from the beginning all breathed a sigh of relief when we found out Brian was moving to New York, because we all knew who else was in New York, and how much of a better person -- and a better boss -- Brian was when Justin was around. Still is, really.

So, as much as I love and respect him, Brian is the last person on earth I’d be seeking dating advice from, given that the only person he’s ever truly been in a relationship with is the one he’s married to, so his experience with actual, real relationships is extremely limited. And as much as I do like having a good time (and sex) I’m certainly not setting myself up with any “no names, no phone numbers, no repeats” policies, because it would be kind of nice to find that man of my dreams one day. But since not asking for Brian’s opinion has never stopped him from giving it, I’ve been the unwilling recipient of many comments from the peanut gallery on my dating life since I moved here, and Richard has been no exception.

Apparently Brian has seen him more than once at a gay bar that he and Justin hang out at sometimes in their neighborhood, hitting on guys and buying them drinks. I think the first time he mentioned it, he thought it was going to be some kind of a revelation, but it wasn’t, because I already knew that Rich was bi. It doesn’t bother me, but it sure as fuck seems to bother Brian, though I don’t know why. It’s not like Brian is the one dating him, and it’s not like Rich is leading some sort of double life either. And Rich and I aren’t exclusive, nor are we trying to be -- not right now. So if he wants to go to a gay bar and have a drink with a guy and maybe even take him home, that’s his business and he’s entitled to do that, just the same as I’m entitled to meet someone at a bar and go home with them.

I know what Brian is doing -- he’s being protective of me, the same way he always has been. That’s just his nature; he’ll do anything for his friends, and he never wants to see anyone he cares about get hurt, physically or otherwise. But I’m a big girl, and I can take care of myself. I’ve reminded him of that several times, but it’s still no secret that Brian is not a fan of Rich in the slightest, and I’m pretty sure he wishes we’d break up. But that’s not up to Brian, and he’s just going to have to suck it up and deal with it, and at least make nice if I end up bringing Rich to an office function. It hasn’t happened yet, but I know it’s probably going to, and I’m honestly dreading it a little bit.

I’ve just picked up my phone to send a flirty little text to Rich when it dings with a message from Justin: _So someone finally got him to go home, I see. Guessing it was you. Thanks._ The message was followed by a kissy-faced emoji.

 _I hope he’s actually resting_ , I reply back. _He sounded awful, and I know he felt like shit. Please make him see a doctor._

The message I receive in return is just a photo -- Brian, asleep on the couch, with his laptop alongside him at a strange angle as if he hadn’t placed it there on purpose, but it had slid off his lap instead when he fell asleep.

I type out a quick reply: _Don’t tell me he was working._

Justin’s reply is short and sweet: _Yep._

 _Give me an hour and your IP address_ , I type back. _I’ll take care of that for the next couple of days._

A few minutes later, Justin sends me their IP address and a heart emoji, which I know is his way of thanking me for helping him keep Brian on the straight-and-narrow when it comes to taking care of himself. He’s been a lot better about that ever since he spent weeks laid up with a severe kidney infection that was a direct result of not doing what he was supposed to be doing, but he’s not perfect by any means. So when I see him starting to slip into old habits, I make it my mission to do whatever I can to make him “do the needful,” as one of our international clients once said in an email, inadvertently kicking off the longest-running inside joke of all time at Kinnetik. And if that means literally pushing Brian out the door and turning off the lights in his office, then that’s what I’ll do. The first time I did that, he was more pissed off at the fact that I was pushing him than anything, and claimed I was treating him like a child because of his wheelchair, but I kindly reminded him of all of the times I’d physically shepherded him out of the office when it was necessary at Ryder, and Vangard, and ultimately Kinnetik, because if I hadn’t, the man would have hardly slept at all. And he hasn’t said a word about it since.

I send Brian and Justin’s IP address on to Damon and request that he block Brian’s access to the entire Kinnetik domain, while I set up an autoresponder on Brian’s email: _Out of office Wednesday and Thursday. For questions or emergencies, please contact Cynthia Moore _. I end the message with my office phone number and my email address, and set it to end on Friday, with the intent to change it if necessary. Actually I’m kind of hoping I will be changing it, because I think five days in a row of rest would do our boss a world of good.__

__By the time I get ready to leave the office, Damon has assured me that Brian won’t be able to access anything from home -- not his email, not our file server, nothing -- and I, in turn, have assured Damon that if Brian tries to fire him, I won’t let him. I know Brian won’t do that, though. Most of the time, when he’s talking about pink slips, he’s all bark and no bite. Still though, it works, and it gets people to do what he wants them to do._ _

__Since I sent Brian home, I’m the last person to leave, so I turn off all the lights and lock up around 6:30, then stop by the coffee shop for a little pick-me-up to enjoy on my commute back to my apartment near Central Park. I finally get a chance to send that flirty little text I intended to send earlier, though I know Rich is probably on a train too. He gets it pretty quickly, though, and responds with a string of emojis that tell me a whole lot about how amazing the rest of my Wednesday evening is about to be._ _


	2. Chapter 2

I’ve just about finished my sugar free vanilla latte when the train lurches to a stop at 66th Street, and I step out into the swarm of people on the platform making their way to the street level. When I get to my apartment, my cat Louis greets me in his way, by giving me a bored look and swishing his tail before deigning to jump down from his perch and come rub against my leg as I kick my shoes off. By the time I get to the bedroom, I’m already shedding my sensible, office-ready button-up shirt and my beige bra so I can trade them both for something a little sexier. Thumbing through the hangers in my walk-in closet, I finally decide to go with a tight black pencil skirt and a red top that accentuates my chest nicely. It’s not that I’m trying to win anyone over with the way I’m dressed -- I don’t need to -- but I like wearing things that showcase my figure. I might be in my mid-40s, but I’ll be damned if anyone is going to look at me and think I’m a day over 35. I take good care of myself, and I like to show that off. It’s for me and nobody else. I wear what I want, and if anybody dares to disrespect me because of it, they’ll be wishing they’d never been born.

I exchange a few more text messages with Rich as I finish getting ready for our date, until he sends me one letting me know that he’s waiting in a cab in front of my building. I give Louis a quick scratch behind the ears on my way out the door, before greeting Rich with a hug and a kiss as he holds the car door open for me and slides into the back seat of the cab alongside me. He always dresses well -- a lot like Brian, really, which makes it even funnier to me that Brian hates him so much. Truthfully, they have a lot in common. Sometimes I actually wonder if Brian’s dislike for him is some sort of bizarre form of jealousy, since I’m kind of his “work wife.” But I know he’d never admit to that, even if I called him out on it. Hell, he probably doesn’t even realize it.

At the restaurant, Rich and I order several small plates to share, along with a bottle of wine. By the end of the night, I’m feeling pretty good, and I’m also pretty damn mesmerized by Rich’s blue eyes, which means I’m more than ready to take him back to my place. Things have already escalated quite a bit before we even make it out of the cab, and his tongue is pushing into my mouth as his body presses against mine in the elevator on the way up to my floor. He’s peppering the back of my neck with soft, gentle kisses as I unlock the door, and I barely have a chance to kick my shoes off and close the door behind us before we’re both undressing each other on our way to my bedroom.

Rich is probably one of the most talented men I’ve ever been in bed with -- the way I imagine Brian would have been back in the day, given the legend that surrounded him before he met Justin and everything started to shift. So suffice to say that I really hate to have to say goodnight to him and send him on his way around midnight, but we both have to work in the morning -- me especially, since I’ll be running the office solo for at least the next day, and hopefully the rest of the week. I’m used to that though; it happens. Sometimes it’s planned, and sometimes it’s not, but we always get through it, even when it’s unexpected.

I arrive at the office around 9 a.m., halfway expecting to find Brian there as well, having conveniently “forgotten” about our agreement. But his office is empty and the lights are off, and along with that comes blessed quiet, at least until my phone rings thirty minutes later with a call from Brian.

“Hello?” I answer, fairly sure I already know exactly why he’s calling.

“What the fuck did you do?” Brian asks, and he somehow sounds even worse than he did yesterday, like he’s been up half the night coughing, which he probably was. “I asked Justin if the wi-fi was working and he just shrugged and said, ‘I think so,’ but he wouldn’t look at me. And since everything is working except my email and my network drive, that looks a little bit suspicious.”

“You said you were going to rest,” I remind him, while I’m clicking around on my own computer, looking at the tasks that other people have added to Brian’s calendar for today, so I can move them to my own.

“I’m in bed; I am resting. I was trying to check my damn email because I’m expecting something important from Remsen.”

“I’ll make sure anything that needs taken care of gets taken care of. I promise. I’m just as invested in this company as you are.” I think sometimes he forgets that -- that I’ve been with him from the beginning, when this company consisted of a handful of people working out of an old bathhouse in Pittsburgh, and the reason I agreed to make the jump with him in the first place was because I believed in him and his ideas. No way in hell am I going to let anything not get done or be less than our best work.

“I’m not a goddamned invalid.” Brian’s voice is starting to rise now, though it’s not as powerful as it would be had he not spent the last several days coughing his head off. “I can check my fucking email without--” He doesn’t get to finish his sentence, however, before he dissolves into a fit of hacking that it takes him a long time to get control over -- much longer than any that I heard yesterday -- to the point where by the time he finally does manage to catch his breath, I’m starting to become concerned.

“Are you by yourself?” I ask, trying not to let too much of said concern bleed through, because -- again -- Brian almost never reacts well to other people being worried about him, and the last thing I want is for him to get any more agitated than he already is and end up making himself sicker.

It takes Brian a few seconds before he says, “Yes,” and his voice is barely above a whisper now. “Justin went to work.”

“Ah, he didn’t want to stand too close to the bear, huh?” I say, trying to shift the tone of the conversation away from concern and more toward lighthearted teasing. Also, I know all too well that Brian is a highly unpleasant person to be around when he’s sick, and this is a time when I wouldn’t want to be in Justin’s position. Though given the hours Brian often spends at the office, I’ve spent plenty of time with sick Brian over the years too. Maybe almost as much as Justin has.

“Fuck you. I can manage my own damn self.” I hear Brian stifle another cough. “Jesus Christ.”

“You need to go to the doctor, Brian,” I say in my no-nonsense voice -- the one that’s often required to make Brian actually listen. “This could be something serious, and it’s not getting any better on its own.”

If I could actually see Brian, I’m sure that he’s probably trying to say something, but his body’s involuntary response is instead yet another coughing fit, though thankfully not as long as the previous one. However, it seems to be enough to back up my point, because when Brian can finally speak again, his response is a scratchy, breathy, “I know.”

“Okay, good. And in the meantime, since you don’t have any emails to check or respond to, please go take a nap.”

“Yes mother.”

“I’m not your mother; don’t you dare wish that curse on me.”

I hear Brian’s familiar sardonic laugh, but that too turns into a cough, followed by a frustrated groan. I want to finish the conversation with, “See you Monday,” but I don’t want to push it. With any luck, the doctor will take care of that for me and tell Brian in no uncertain terms that he needs to stay home from work tomorrow. So instead, I simply say, “Goodnight, call me if you need anything that isn’t work-related,” because it does kind of worry me that Brian is home alone, given that he sounds like he’s about to choke on his own breath. But I also know he’d have to be practically dying before he’d ever ask for anything. Still, the offer is out there.

Given that I already know that Brian’s stubbornness can sometimes do him more harm than good, I decide to send a text to Justin. I know he probably won’t be able to respond right away because he’s likely in class, but I want him to know just how awful his husband sounds, just in case Brian was somehow able to put on airs this morning and make Justin think he was “fine.”

 _Your husband sounds like he's about to cough up a lung any minute now,_ I type. _Please tell me you're planning to drag his stubborn ass to urgent care later._

I get a response back about fifteen minutes later that says: _I know. He kept both of us up all night, but there’s nothing I can do for him. I tried. He already has a doctor’s appointment this afternoon. I didn’t want to leave him, but he insisted that I go to work, so…_

Justin doesn’t finish that sentence, and I don’t need him to, because I know there would have been absolutely no arguing with Brian, even if he could hardly speak.

The next time I hear from Brian, it’s in the form of a text message later in the afternoon, letting me know that he won’t be in until Monday, and I’m grateful that he finally sought some medical advice and listened to it. Best of all, that actually turns out to be the last I hear from him until Monday morning. The rest of us manage to keep the office going without a hitch, despite the anxiety Brian always seems to have about how on earth we’ll do that without him there to strike fear in the hearts of the art department and overanalyze everything that’s already finished.

When I get to the office on Monday, Brian is already there (surprise, surprise), looking at least marginally better than he had on Wednesday. He still sounds like shit, and he hardly even has a voice by this point, but he isn’t coughing _quite_ as much, so it seems like taking a few days off (and some medication) has helped. However, his mood doesn’t seem to have improved at all, because he’s getting pissed off at every little thing, and although I’m not hearing as much coughing coming from the office next door, now I’m hearing cursing and the sound of objects being thrown and drawers being slammed. So I give Brian a wide berth, trying to keep my interaction with him as limited as possible -- not because I’m afraid of him, but because it drives me fucking nuts when he acts like this. Finally, after our early-afternoon staff meeting mostly consists of Brian grousing about stupid shit that doesn’t really matter, I decide I’ve had enough, and follow him back to his office after our meeting wraps up.

“What the fuck is your problem?” I ask, closing the door to his office behind me. “I know you feel like shit, but if you’re going to treat our employees like shit too -- even the ones you _like_ \-- then you’d do better to just stay home and let me handle it. And I _can_ handle it.”

In that moment, Brian looks like every bit of the fire and anger that he’s been spewing at random intervals all day long has suddenly drained out of him as he lets his head loll back and pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He lets out a long sigh, but doesn’t say a word.

“If you need to stay home, then stay home,” I continue, my tone a bit gentler to match Brian's completely changed disposition. “It’s fine. We’ve got everything covered.”

“There’s just so much on the line with this Remsen stuff,” he says, sounding every bit as tired as he looks. “I feel like it has to be perfect -- like I have to prove myself to them all over again.”

“You don’t, though. They chose you. They signed a contract.” I know why Brian is worried about this, and I know about the asshole that’s now on Remsen’s board of directors who apparently thinks Brian is less-than-capable, simply because he’s paralyzed. Ted told me what happened at that meeting, and it made me want to go kick some ass out in Chicago, but I didn’t. Still, though, I understand what that ignited in Brian, and that I’m seeing the direct result of it in front of me right now. “Lawrence Remsen knows you, and he knows you won’t settle for less than the best. But don’t kill yourself over it. There’s no need to. The campaign is perfect.”

“It’s not my best work, though. I know I can do better.”

I have to fight myself not to roll my eyes, because I know this is Brian’s raging inner perfectionist speaking, but I also know better than to brush him off when he’s being vulnerable. And, seeing the Brian Kinney that’s in front of me right now, suddenly the way he’s been acting all day makes sense -- he’s feeling insecure, and he’s masking it with anger. So, rolling my eyes right now would not be a good thing, because it would only cause him to throw his walls up and shut me out too.

“Brian.” I pull my chair a little closer to his desk and lean forward so that he and I are face-to-face. “This is what you have an entire staff for. You’re not a one-man band. You’re sick right now, and that might mean letting the rest of us take a bigger role on this, at least for a couple of weeks. We’re a team. A family, even. If one of us is down, the rest of us will pick up the slack.”

He’s quiet for a moment -- a quiet that signifies to me that he knows I’m right -- and when he responds, he’s not looking at me, but instead down at the desk, where he’s absently running his thumbnail over a tiny nick in its glass surface that was likely caused by one of his earlier temper tantrums. “I’m sick of being sick,” he says softly. “I was supposed to take Justin out last night for his birthday, and I couldn’t even do that. I fell asleep after dinner, and I didn’t wake up until this morning.”

So that’s what this is really about, I think to myself. It’s another one of the guilt trips Brian sends himself on when he can’t do something he feels like he should do for someone he loves, to somehow prove himself worthy of their affection.

“Justin gets it too,” I say earnestly. “You’re his husband. You’re family. He wants you to take care of yourself. All of us here want that too. You’ve got your trip to Toronto for Gus’ graduation coming up. You need to go home and rest, so you can get over this.”

It takes several more minutes of going back and forth to completely convince Brian that we really do have everything covered at the office, and he can go home -- and stay there for a few more days if he needs to -- without worrying about any of his campaigns. I have to agree to personally oversee the rest of the Remsen ads and send them on to him for his final approval -- which I begrudgingly agree to, on the condition that will be the only thing he does, and if any changes are needed, I’ll take care of making sure they get done.

Finally, I get him to go home, and he doesn’t come back in until the following week. In the meantime, I pull Christina in on the Remsen campaign, because I honestly think she’s our best graphic artist right now, even up against our senior staff in Pittsburgh. She makes a few adjustments that I think are perfection, and I practically dare Brian to disagree. Thankfully, he doesn’t, and when I send everything on to the publisher, I’m confident that we really have done our best work -- as a team.

While I’m busy running the office, I’m also trying to manage my social life, which is a little bit more difficult because I’m having to put in longer hours than I normally do, trying to cover my workload as well as Brian’s. Not that I mind doing that -- I don’t, because I know it’s what has to be done sometimes, and he’d do it for me in a heartbeat -- but all work and no play will never be a life philosophy of mine.

Still, there are a couple of nights when I don’t have a choice but to cancel my plans with Rich because I have too much that needs to get done at work. He seems irritated -- especially the second time -- but ultimately sighs and relents, and we make do with a quick hookup at his apartment on a Thursday night, which does a hell of a lot to lower my stress level.

Thankfully, when Brian comes back to work this time, it seems like he actually is over whatever the hell he had. It’s obvious he feels a lot better, though his voice still sounds like he’s been chain smoking cigarettes, despite the fact that I know he hasn’t smoked since his accident. I refrain from teasing him about it though, because honestly, I’m just glad he’s back and finally feeling better.

Of course, a week later, he’s gone to Toronto to spend time with Gus, and I’m back to running Kinnetik by myself. That’s when my office phone rings with a Chicago area code and a phone call from Remsen Pharmaceuticals, our biggest account.


	3. Chapter 3

“Sure,” I say, tapping my pen on my desk and looking over the notes I’ve jotted down during the call. “We’ll have it done by Friday, no problem. Have a great rest of your afternoon, Mr. Solomon.”

As I hang up my office phone, I let out the breath I’ve been holding for most of the time I was on the phone. Of course, Remsen would wait until Brian is in Toronto to suddenly have a new drug approved that they want ads for in all of the trade publications by next month, which means we only have a few days to come up with a full campaign from start to finish. I know we can do it, but it’ll take long hours and a lot of prioritizing and pushing aside some tasks that can wait.

And of course this phone call would be from the asshole who doubted Brian in the first place. It took Ted and I a little bit of online research to figure out his name, but we wanted to know who he was, if for no other reason than to have the ability to roll our eyes and make faces -- like the mature adults we are -- when we receive phone calls and emails from him. Just knowing that the call came from him almost makes me wonder if perhaps he’s testing Brian, to see if he can really deliver at a moment’s notice.

It’s no problem, though, because I absolutely plan to deliver.

I type up the notes I took on the call and add them to a file along with the email I asked Mr. Solomon to send me with all of the details on the drug, and I send Christina a quick message on our internal chat system to ask her to come see me ASAP. Not even five minutes later, she’s standing at my office door, looking a bit uneasy.

“Is everything okay with the New York Tourism ad?” she asks apprehensively. “I know it was kind of a big change, but I thought the new color scheme blended better with the photos--”

“Oh, shit, sorry, yes, everything’s fine with that ad; it’s beautiful.” Honestly, I hadn’t given too much thought to how my chat message might come across, and I feel bad for making Christina anxious. “I needed to talk to you about something else. What are you working on right now?”

“Mock-ups for Unique Boutique.”

“And that’s due…” I let my voice trail off as I examine my calendar before continuing, “...in two weeks, it looks like?”

Christina nods.

“Okay, I’m pulling you off of that for now. Tell Julia I said to pass it to an intern. Surely they could manage to not fuck it up, and if they do, we’ve got time to fix it. I’m putting you on the new Remsen ad that’s due Monday. New product.”

“Do we have anything for it already?”

“Nope. That’s how new it is. Come on in; have a seat. They just sent me all the info.”

“Okay,” she says, her confidence suddenly back as she comes in and sits down. “Show me what you’ve got.”

When we finish brainstorming together, Christina goes back to her desk to get started on the artwork, while I work on setting the ball in motion to be sure the copy gets done as well. For a while, it looks like everything is smooth sailing and we’ll get this ad done in mere days with absolutely no problem. Just as I’m thinking that’s too good to be true, we hit a huge snag on Friday morning when Mr. Asshole himself refuses to approve the ad because it didn’t “match their vision.” Personally, I think it’s exactly what he asked for when I talked to him on Wednesday morning. But since the customer is always right and this is a fucking huge account that we can’t afford to lose, I have to keep a smile in my voice as I tell him that we’ll change everything and send him a new copy by Monday. I know that’s pushing it, given that we have to submit the ad no later than Monday at 5 p.m. to make next month’s publications, but I also know I have a great team behind me, and we can make it happen.

Christina is no happier to be starting all over than I am, but it’s what we have to do. Honestly, I think this guy is purposely trying to set a trap for us, and I’m not falling into it, so that makes me even more determined to knock his socks off with this ad. Of course, that means working late and over the weekend so we can get this done by Monday, and that means cancelling another date with Rich.

As 6 o’clock creeps closer and Christina and I are nowhere near where we need to be on this ad, I start to dread making the phone call that I know I have to make -- not because I feel guilty, but because I don’t want to listen to Rich whine. Given the way he acted the last time I had to cancel, I’m absolutely certain he’s going to throw a shit fit this time, which I’m not feeling particularly inclined to entertain or listen to. Nonetheless, I have to make the call, and I’m not the least bit surprised when he doesn’t even allow me to finish my sentence before interrupting me.

“You know, if you’d step away from work every once in a while, maybe you’d have more time for me -- for us. For our relationship.”

“Excuse me?” I say, more than a little surprised at his use of that word. “You and I are dating. We’re not in a relationship.”

“We’re fucking, aren’t we? Sounds pretty damn serious to me. Though, here lately, I think it’s your job that you’re in a relationship with. You’ve already cancelled five lunches with me, and three dates, all at the last minute, and this makes four.”

“I wasn’t aware we were keeping score.” I’m trying my best to keep my voice even, but Rich is seriously pissing me off right now. Not to mention the fact that I’m wondering where in the hell all of this is coming from -- I thought we were just having fun together, but clearly he’s been thinking things are a lot more involved.

“I mean, what’s going to happen if we decide to have a family someday? Are our kids even going to know who their mother is, or are you going to be spending all of your time at work?”

“Wait, whoa--” I start, but I don’t get my flabbergasted ‘what the fuck’ out before he interrupts me again.

“I can support us both, you know. You don’t even have to work. You can spend your whole day at home eating bon-bons if you want. Be a kept woman.”

“Excuse you. Just what the hell makes you think I want to be a kept woman?”

"Isn't that every woman's dream?"

"Not this woman. This woman prefers to support herself."

"Don't worry, I can keep you in all your pretty things."

"My 'pretty things?' I can buy my own things, thank you very much. Besides, I’m pretty sure I make more money than you--

“Doing what, being some kind of glorified secretary? Tell that boss of yours--”

“Brian is not my boss; we are _partners_ in this company. We’re on equal footing. You know, I’m starting to wonder if you even know me at all. If this is what you’re after, maybe we’re better off calling it quits.”

“Cynthia, that’s not what I meant…” He starts to backpedal, though I’m really not interested in any of his excuses right now. Not when he’s just insulted the core of who I am as a person -- an independent woman who doesn’t need anyone else and answers to no one.

“Then what exactly did you mean? Because I’m sure as hell not interested in settling down and having kids or starting a family right now. Or ever.”

“Cyn,” he sighs, and I can hear the remorse in his voice, but I’m still trying to figure out where the hell all of this came from and at what point we went from casual dating and fucking to some sort of catalyst for the stuff heteronormative dreams are made of. “Can I come over to your office? Let’s talk about this, in person. I’m sure we can figure it out.”

“There’s nothing to figure out. Clearly you don’t understand who I am, so honestly, I don’t think this is going to work out.”

“Cyn, please. I didn’t mean to--”

“I have to go. You know, work stuff. Have a nice life, Rich.” As I hang up on him, I’m thinking that I hope he finds the kind of partner he’s looking for, because it sure as hell isn’t me, and it’s never going to be.

Turns out, not only was Brian dead wrong about Rich’s motivations and desires, but I apparently was as well.

Christina and I spend a couple more hours at the office before we decide to wrap things up for the night and reconvene tomorrow morning to hopefully finish the ad with fresh eyes and more motivation, when we’re not dead tired.

Tired as I am, I’m also starving, and I really need a drink. Suddenly, that little dive bar a few blocks from the office -- the one with the killer buffalo wings that Brian can demolish an entire basket of all by himself, while simultaneously denying that he ate them all -- is looking very attractive. So I stop in the middle of the sidewalk, fluff up my hair and undo the top couple of buttons of my blouse, just enough to make me feel sexy instead of like I’m about to go into a business meeting, then yank open the door, ready to lose myself in a whiskey sour or two and a basket of deep-fried goodness, though I’ll pass on the wings this time. I don’t normally eat greasy things, but tonight, I feel like I deserve it.

I’m sitting at the bar, sipping my cocktail and sampling the appetizer platter I ordered just for myself, when someone slides onto the barstool next to mine.

“This seat taken?”

I look over, and find that the voice belongs to a dark-haired man whose eyes could easily rival Brian’s in their color as well as their intensity. I can tell he’s a little on the short side, even though he’s sitting down, and he’s a little bit chubby, with a few gray hairs peppering his beard as well as the hair at his temples.

“It’s all yours,” I say, shrugging.

He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, though I can see him looking at me out of the corner of my eye. “Have I seen you here before?” he asks.

I take another sip of my drink and turn to face him. “Probably. I come here during the day sometimes with a coworker.”

Suddenly, recognition dawns in his eyes, and I know exactly why before he even says it, because Brian is pretty memorable, for better or for worse, even in a huge city like New York. “Oh! Yeah, I remember now, the guy in the wheelchair, right?” I nod, and he keeps right on talking. “I guess I thought he was your husband.”

I laugh and shake my head. “No, but I’ll take great pleasure in telling him you thought so. He’s gay. And married.”

“I guess I figured a lovely lady such as yourself would be taken.”

“Nah. I prefer to keep things casual.”

“I can respect that.”

Good, I think to myself, otherwise this conversation would be over, especially tonight. I’m not in the mood to put up with anyone else’s idea of what a woman should be or what she should want.

Thankfully, he turns out to be pretty open-minded, as well as a good conversationalist. He lives close by, and doesn’t work too far away either. He’s divorced, and his ex-wife and their kids live in Philly. I hadn’t intended to talk so much, but alcohol sometimes has that effect on me.

I'm not even sure what leads me to start flirting with him, but, a few drinks later, I am. Maybe I just need to feel desired. Or maybe I just need to work out all of my stress and frustration, and sex seems like the perfect way to do that.

He's not really my type, but he's attractive enough, and he's single, so pretty soon, one thing leads to another, and we end up at his apartment. I know that's kind of a dumb move, given that I barely know this guy. That's why I usually like to go back to my own place when I'm with someone new -- it just feels safer. But he seems like a nice guy -- innocent and a little naive, kind of like Michael -- so I decide to take my chances, but keep my phone close by.

We're both more than a little bit tipsy -- actually, I'd probably say I'm drunk, and he is too -- so it doesn't take long for things between us to heat up, and for a hot and heavy makeout session to turn into much, much more.

"I don't usually do this kind of thing," he breathes, as our hands begin to wander over each others' bodies.

"What, have sex?" I can't help but laugh.

"No." He pauses to kiss me again. "Well, yes. But what I meant was, I don't usually bring home women I meet at bars."

"Well, there's a first time for everything." Now that I have his shirt fully unbuttoned, I slip it over his shoulders and down his arms, then start working on his pants as he slips his t-shirt over his head and begins unbuttoning my shirt.

Once we're undressed, I push him down onto the bed and press my lips against his, hard.

"Wait, wait," he mumbles, into my mouth at first before pulling away. "I don't have any condoms. Shit. That's how long it's been." He grins sheepishly, his cheeks just slightly flushed, though I'm not sure if it's from arousal or embarrassment.

"No problem." I slide off of the bed and walk over to the chair where I'd deposited my handbag earlier, then dig through it until I find my stash of condoms. "I always carry some."

"I like a woman who's prepared." He looks me up and down as I walk back to the bed, and I can tell he likes what he sees.

He presses his lips to mine as I open the condom and put it on him, turning the task into a bit of foreplay by adding a little playful stroking that elicits a soft moan. He repays me by fingering me until I'm practically begging him to fuck me.

He's definitely not the best lay I've ever had, but he's also certainly not the worst. It's enjoyable, and my orgasm leaves me feeling totally blissed out for awhile, like I don't have a care in the world. So I'd say, mission accomplished.

We lie there together for awhile, and he invites me to spend the night, but I need to go home, since I don't plan to wear the same outfit to the office tomorrow, and I know I need to get some sleep. So I make the trek back to my apartment and go to bed that night still feeling sated and a lot less stressed. Let it never be said that Brian was on the wrong track when he referred to casual sex as "pain management."

After a good night’s sleep in my own bed, I text Christina to tell her we’re going casual today, and I put on my skinny jeans and a knit top. No reason to dress up if we’re going to be the only ones at the office and there are no clients to impress. I stop by the coffee shop on my way in to pick up a couple of lattes and some pastries, and the two of us take up residence in the “huddle space” that the millennial who designed our office setup suggested. Apparently it’s a thing, and although Brian made fun of it -- mostly because he’s averse to all things millennial, despite his son being one of them -- it’s actually been pretty useful. It’s comfortable, with couches and fluffy armchairs and desks and tables that can be easily moved, and it makes it easy to collaborate.

“Bet this isn’t how you thought you’d be spending your Saturday,” I say, as Christina uses her tablet to draw a couple of elements of our ad freehand. After all of this effort, I sure hope Mr. Asshole is pleased and feels like this matches his “vision,” otherwise I don’t know what we’re going to do.

“It’s fine,” she smiles, laughing a little. “I don’t mind. I don’t really have much of a social life here yet. I’ve gone on a few dates, but so far all of them have turned out to be jerks.”

“I feel that,” I say, trying to hold myself back from going on a rant about Rich and his ‘theories’ on what a woman wants, but I’m pretty sure Christina is on the same page I am, so I let it out anyway, and in the end, I’m glad I did. It feels good to rant about it with someone else who thinks he was being just as ridiculous as I do, and since Brian is in Toronto, I can’t do it with him, so it also feels good to find someone else I can speak frankly with, who gets it.

Several hours and a lot of delivered Thai food later, we finally have a completed ad, and I’ve made up my mind that I’m going to use my powers of persuasion to make Mr. Asshole like it, no matter what he says. We open one of the bottles of wine I keep in the mini fridge in my office to celebrate as we talk about our lives -- men and work and the pursuit of happiness -- and I keep thinking about how grateful I am to work with people who are not only talented, but also top-notch humans.

When Brian comes back to work on Wednesday, he isn’t in his office for more than ten minutes before he’s calling my name, and I’m sure I already know what this is about -- control-freak Brian pissed off that something happened with one of his most important accounts without him even knowing about it, despite the fact that it was done to perfection, and Mr. Asshole not only approved it but even thanked us for our hard work and wrote us a not-so-little bonus check for getting it all done on such short notice. But I knew Brian was probably going to throw a fit, and I’m not wrong, because the first words out of his mouth when I get into his office are, “What the fuck is this?” He gestures to his screen, which is displaying the ad Christina and I spent most of the weekend working on.

“Something that’s already done, that you don’t need to freak out about,” I respond casually as I take a seat in one of the chairs in front of Brian’s desk.

“Why didn’t anyone call me?”

“Because there was no need to. You were having family time. We had it covered.”

“This is my account,” he says, and I can hear the forced evenness to his tone. “Someone should have called me.”

“It’s _our_ account. As in, all of us. Do I really need to remind you again that you’re not a one-man band? We got it done. It’s fine. They approved it, wrote us a bonus check, and we got it turned in on time to be in the trade magazines next month. And if that asshole thought he could stump us, we proved him wrong.”

“Solomon?”

“None other.”

“Bastard.”

“So, despite us cutting off your ability to micromanage, what do you think of the ad?”

He pauses, looking thoughtfully at his screen for a moment before he replies. I can tell he wants to find fault if for no other reason than to justify being upset, but I also know he isn’t going to find any, so I’m not surprised when he finally says, “It’s really nice. Worthy of the bonus check, I’d say."

"Thank you," I say, smiling, with the full knowledge that Brian doesn't hand down compliments like that very easily.

He's still studying the ad carefully, but I can see in his eyes and in his facial expression that he really does like it.

"Was this done by Christina?” he asks, still obviously deep in thought.

“Yep.”

“You know, we should really just fire the rest of the art department and let her do it all.” I know he’s joking, but he’s using that half-serious deadpan tone of voice that often scares the shit out of people who don’t know him as well as some of us do. I’m just about to fire back a joke of my own when he suddenly changes the subject. “By the way, I saw your boy toy last night at the bar, hitting on about a half-dozen different guys. Seems like he’s getting around.” He looks at me, quirking his eyebrow upward, and I can easily fill in the gaps with all of the things he’s not saying -- that he thinks Rich is some kind of manwhore who’s going to wind up giving me something. No worries about that anymore, I think to myself, even though it was never really a concern because I always protect myself; it’s why I carry condoms in my purse.

“Good for him,” I say, keeping my tone nonchalant. “Maybe he’ll have better luck finding a wife there.”

I tell Brian the whole sordid tale of what happened with Rich, and I try to ignore the ‘I-told-you-so’ smirk on his face that I can tell he’s trying to tamp down because he knows I’m pissed off.

“I was wondering why he kept shooting me dirty looks all night,” Brian says, followed by his trademark sardonic laugh. “I think he was paying more attention to me than he was to all of the guys he was cruising.”

“He probably blames you. Even though it’s no one’s fault but his own.”

“Well, it kind of is my fault.” Brian looks down at his desk and sighs. “You’ve been having to cover for me a lot lately. Not that I liked the guy, but if he made you happy, I don’t want to be the reason--”

“Brian, it’s fine.” I cut him off before he can get too far into this self-blame game he likes to play for things that aren’t really his fault. “He’s the one who opened his big, fat mouth and stuck his foot in it. You and I both know that if he wants kids and a family, I’m not the woman for him. And as for work, you cover for me, and I cover for you. We’re in this together. The clients are happy, and everything is fine. Now, let’s refocus your reign of terror on the absolute disaster that is the new Brown Athletics ad.”

I spend a few minutes redirecting Brian’s attention to what is quite possibly the worst piece of work I’ve ever seen our art department produce -- and for an established account, too -- until he’s all fired up and ready to threaten people with pink slips he’d never dream of actually handing out. But that’s just Brian -- on the surface, an intimidating bear of a boss, but underneath, someone who actually cares about his employees and would do anything for them.

And that’s exactly why I’ll never hesitate to do what needs to be done to help him out, even if it means long hours at the office and ridding myself of what would have no doubt turned out to be a toxic relationship. Because blood is thicker than water, and Brian’s not just my coworker, and he’s not just my friend. He’s family. Family takes care of each other.


	4. Chapter 4

Two weeks later, Brian has a handful of meetings in Pittsburgh with a few clients who still prefer to work directly with him instead of with the account executives we’ve hired since both of us moved to Manhattan, so it’s up to me to keep the NYC branch running once again while he’s out of town. It’s also Brian’s birthday, so he and Justin leave a couple of days early, just as they’ve done the last couple of times Brian had to go to Pittsburgh for business, and I’m happy that they’re getting a little time to themselves. They both need that, even if Brian would insist that he doesn’t need breaks or rest.

When he gets back, he has lunch with Rob, which has become a rarity over the last couple of months, since Rob has apparently been taking a page out of Brian’s book and burning the candle at both ends. I could hear bits and pieces of Brian’s half of the conversation, though, and it sounded like Brian had to talk Rob into even letting him bring lunch over to Rob’s office. Rob must have relented, though, because Brian leaves and is gone for a couple of hours. When he comes back, he’s distracted and obviously worried, and I end up practically taking over for him in our 2 p.m. client meeting, because he’s about a million miles away.

“How’s Rob?” I ask, once we shake hands, sign contracts, and send the client on their way, leaving Brian and I alone in the conference room.

“Huh?” Brian shakes his head, seemingly bringing himself out of his thoughts and back to reality.

“You had lunch with Rob, right?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Is he doing okay?”

“Same shit, different day. I just wish I could find a way to get him to come work for us. They’re treating him like shit, and he’s putting up with it, because he’s too damn loyal.”

“There must be some reason why he’s staying. Maybe it’s not as bad as it looks from your perspective.”

“Oh, it’s just as bad. Actually I’m not sure he’s telling me all of it, so it’s probably worse. He says he doesn’t know shit about advertising, but he does. Sales is basically advertising. He’s smart; he’d figure it out.”

“So why do you think he’s turning you down?”

“I think he likes security. He’s been there a long time. He’s got seniority, though fuck-all good that’s doing him right now. I get that, because I’ve been there with Ryder and Vangard. But sometimes you just have to step out on your own.”

“Can you honestly tell me you would have started this company, though, if you hadn’t been pushed? If Gardner hadn’t fired you?”

“Good point. I don’t know. I’d like to think I would have. I get his hesitation and where it’s coming from, but we’re an established company now. So it’s not like I’m asking him to take a chance on me. Not the way I did with you.”

“Maybe he feels like you’re only offering him the position because you’re friends?”

“Maybe.” Brian shrugs. “I care about him. He’s running himself into the fucking ground right now.”

“Gee, I don’t know anyone else who’s like that at all.” I smile, and Brian gives me a look that clearly says, go to hell. I stand and pick up the stack of signed contracts and other paperwork from the table so I can take it to Jonathan, our executive assistant, to be sent on to the right people and then filed away. “Maybe he’ll come around.”

“Let’s hope so, before he has a goddamn heart attack.” Brian shifts his body back slightly in his wheelchair before turning to follow me out of the room. He goes into his office and closes the door -- something he only does when he needs time alone to think, which tells me he’s probably a heck of a lot more worried about Rob than he’s letting on, and there’s probably more to the story than what he told me. 

A few days later, I’m sitting at my desk, browsing one of my dating apps as I work on putting together some mock-ups for a prospective client, when one of our interns appears outside my office door, looking nervous.

“Can I help you?” I ask, trying not to sound intimidating, given that this poor kid already looks like he’s about to piss himself.

“I, uh…” he stutters, shifting his weight back and forth from foot to foot. “Jonathan told me he really needs Mr. Kinney to sign off on this, like… now. But his door is closed and there’s someone in there, and I don’t want to go back with it unsigned--”

“Give it to me,” I interrupt him, just to stop him from continuing to babble on in my doorway. I hold out my hand and motion for him to hand me the document, which he does, after slowly and cautiously approaching my desk as if I’m a tiger who might attack him at any moment. This kid is never going to survive at this company, I think to myself as I look over the paperwork, trying to figure out what the heck it is and whether or not it’s something I can sign off on instead, but since it already has Brian’s name on it, printed below the signature line, it doesn’t look like that’s possible. I haven’t forged his signature in years, nor has he asked me to, so I’m definitely not going to start again today, especially since I don’t have a clue what this is about. “Leave it with me. I’ll have him sign it. Tell Jonathan I said to keep his pants on.”

The kid nods and licks his lips, then turns and leaves, still looking petrified, though I know that once Jonathan hears that I’m taking care of it, he’ll be fine. Jonathan is a bit of a queen, with a flair for the dramatic, so I seriously doubt that there’s as much urgency around getting this paperwork signed as the kid was led to believe. Still, I won’t make him sweat, so I get up from my desk and make my way to Brian’s office, finding that, just as the kid said, the door is closed, which is odd, because I know Brian didn’t have any meetings this morning. So I try to position myself to look through the window without being too obvious, and I can see that Rob is in there, sitting on the sofa with Brian, and they’re drinking. It’s not even noon, so that’s more than a little unusual, particularly for Rob, whom I’m not sure drinks alcohol at all. He won’t even drink coffee. But, sure as shit, he’s got a glass of Jim Beam in his hand, and so does Brian.

Still trying to keep from being seen, I get as good of a look at Rob as I can, and it’s obvious that he’s been crying. Now I’m worried, and I’m wondering what the hell is going on, but I definitely won’t be interrupting their conversation. So I slowly turn and walk back toward my own office, unsigned paperwork in hand, resisting the urge to go into our shared bathroom to eavesdrop on what’s happening in Brian’s office. I hope nothing is wrong, but the scene I just saw seems to indicate otherwise, so I’ll have to settle for hoping that whatever it is, it’s not _too_ serious. But I also know Rob isn’t really a crier, so...

I try to keep working, but it’s hard to do because I’m distracted. Finally, after what feels like an eternity, I see Rob leaving, heading toward the elevator at the other end of the hallway. I take a deep breath and pick up the folder as I stand and smooth out my skirt, not bothering to put my shoes back on this time because my new Louboutins are not being kind to my toes today. When I get to Brian’s office door, which is open this time, he’s pouring himself two fingers of whiskey, which he quickly downs before setting the glass back down to pour himself some more.

“Everything okay?” I ask hesitantly, knowing that the answer to that question is obviously no, but I don’t know how the hell else I’m supposed to start this conversation without revealing that I was practically spying on them a few minutes ago.

Brian looks up at me, clearly shell-shocked by whatever conversation he and Rob just had, but motions for me to come in.

“Close the door,” he says, and I do, before crossing the room to take a seat next to him on the sofa. “What’s that?” He gestures toward the folder in my hand, as I lay it on the coffee table in front of us.

“Oh, just some paperwork Jonathan needed your signature on.”

“And he sent you?”

“No, he sent that intern who’s afraid of everybody.”

“Figures,” Brian scoffs. “I thought I saw him outside the door a while ago.”

I don’t say anything, though I’m hoping Brian didn’t see me as well -- I wouldn’t know, since I was too focused on Rob. But Brian doesn’t mention it. Instead, he pulls a pen out of his pocket and leans forward, setting his glass down as he flips the folder open and scribbles his signature on the marked line without even reading what he’s signing. I guess maybe he already knew what it was. Let’s hope, anyway. When he’s done, he lays the pen down next to the folder and picks up his glass again, pushing off of his knee to sit up straight before leaning back and closing his eyes. He takes a sip of whiskey and lets out a long breath. I’m just about to ask him again if everything is alright, when he suddenly blurts out, “Rob has a tumor.”

“What?” I blink at Brian, wondering if I heard him correctly, and hoping I didn’t.

“He’s got a tumor on his spine. It’s in his neck. Pressing on his spinal cord, I guess. He can hardly use his right hand anymore. Damn doctor told him it was nothing the first time -- just stress and overworking. Thank god he went back, because…” Brian doesn’t finish that sentence, and I’m sure it’s because he doesn’t want to think about what the end of it would be, and I don’t either. Why the fuck do bad things happen to good people?

“Is he going to be okay?” I know it’s a dumb question, but I really don’t know what else to say.

Brian shrugs. “They don’t know. He’s having surgery next week.”

“Wow.” I shake my head in disbelief, knowing that the fact that they’ve scheduled the surgery so soon means there’s a sense of urgency about this, and it’s probably very serious. “Does he need anything?”

“I don’t know. Probably. Not sure he knows what yet. But I’ll do whatever I can.”

“We’ll take care of things here, so you can do whatever you need to do.”

“Thanks.”

We sit in silence for a few minutes, Brian leaning back against the sofa cushions with his eyes closed while I try to figure out if I should stay or go. Just as I’m getting ready to stand up and leave Brian alone to try to process whatever he’s thinking about, he speaks again.

“He’s fucking scared to death.” Brian pauses and takes a gulp of his whiskey, nearly finishing what’s left in the glass in one shot. All I can think of is how I haven’t seen him drink like this in a long, long time, and that behavior alone is telling me a lot about his mental state at the moment. “Hell, I would be too. It’s like… you spend all of this time coming to terms with what happened to you, accepting that this is your reality, and it’s forever. There’s no changing it and no taking it back, so you have two choices: staying stuck or moving forward. You choose to move forward, and you make the best of it, and it’s fucking hard -- really fucking hard -- but you do it anyway. And then somehow, ten years later, all of a sudden you realize this feels like normal and thinking about standing or walking feels strange… like everything’s flipped. But to have to do that all over again, now…” This time, Brian does drain the rest of the glass, and I gently take it from his hand and set it aside on the coffee table, hoping he’s not going to ask me for a refill because I’m not sure I want to give it to him. “I can’t even fucking imagine. Just, surprise, you’re a quad now. Oh, and you might have cancer, too. What the fuck do you do with that? All I can think of is that I’m fucking glad it’s not me.” Brian snorts, then finally looks at me, his hazel eyes boring into mine with an intensity that’s usually only reserved for proving himself to asshole clients. “Guess that makes me a pretty shitty friend, huh?”

“I think it just makes you human,” I say honestly, holding Brian’s gaze and trying to figure out what I see in there. I see worry, sure, but mostly, I see fear, though I’m not sure if it’s fear on Rob’s behalf, or fear of not being able to be the friend Rob needs right now. “You’re a good friend. Trust me, I should know.”

Brian has more than proven over the years what a great friend he is -- not just with me, but with everyone he cares about. I think people get distracted by the cynical, self-centered persona Brian often projects to strangers, but those of us who know him well are fully aware that -- though he certainly can be a little self-absorbed at times -- he cares deeply for his friends and the people he considers to be family. If you need something, he won’t hesitate to provide it, although he wants to do it behind the scenes, without fanfare, and if you try to thank him, he’ll make some caustic remark. But he’s exactly the kind of person you want to have in your corner.

Brian nods and looks away again, pulling his lower lip into his mouth, but I expected that because I know that he still has a hard time accepting compliments like that. You can compliment his work all day long and he’ll soak that right up with an air about him that says, “Damn right I am,” but compliment some personal characteristic of his, and suddenly he becomes this shy kid who doesn’t think he’s worth a damn. And when you get to see that, that’s when you’ve gotten to know the real Brian Kinney. The man beneath the mask. He’s come a long way since meeting Justin, but I don’t think those insecurities will ever be totally gone -- they’re rooted too deeply. And I hate that for him, because he really is a good person, even if people have told him all of his life that he’s not. I wouldn’t have stayed with him all these years if he wasn’t.

He leans forward and reaches for the whiskey bottle on the coffee table, presumably to pour himself another glass, but I stop him by laying my hand over his.

“Why don’t you go home?” I suggest, keeping my voice as gentle as possible. “Be with Justin. Go check on Rob. We’ll handle the Eyeconics meeting.”

I expect him to argue, but he doesn’t. Instead, he takes his hand off the bottle and sits back into the sofa cushions, letting his eyes close again. He sits there for a moment, just breathing, then swallows hard and blinks his eyes open before uttering a quiet, “Okay.”

“Want me to call a car for you?”

“I’ll do it.” He looks at me again, and I see a vulnerability in his eyes that I don’t see very often. “I just… I need a minute.”

“Sure.” I give Brian my best reassuring smile as I stand, though I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about him. I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on inside his head, though I know that’s a tall order, because Brian Kinney is a complex man. It’s obvious that this happening to Rob has brought up a lot of feelings in Brian that he probably hasn’t revisited in a long time.

I still remember when Brian first met Rob -- when he told me that the most bizarre thing had happened at his afternoon meeting, and he’d ended up casually meeting another wheelchair user for the first time outside of rehab and the support group that his therapist had sent him to. And I remember how it seemed like they were becoming more than business associates -- they were becoming friends.

I think Rob’s friendship did more for Brian at that time than Brian even realized. Slowly, Brian started to emerge from the shell he’d built around himself after his accident. The rest of us had been trying to chip at it for a couple of years at that point, and Justin seemed to have made some really good progress with the help of Brian’s therapist, but Rob was the one who pushed Brian to break it wide open, just by showing him what life could be like for him, post-spinal-cord-injury. I’m not sure Brian would be the person he is today if they hadn’t met, to be honest. It’s like they were destined to meet each other that day, and maybe they were. Brian needed Rob all those years ago, and now, Rob needs Brian.

Meanwhile, I’ll make sure that I’m doing everything I can to keep things running smoothly at the office, so Brian can do whatever he needs to do to support his friend. Our friend, really. I join them for lunch sometimes, since our offices are close by, and I really enjoy being around Rob. He’s a nice guy, and in a lot of ways the total opposite of Brian, which I guess might be what makes them get along so well. They balance each other out. But Rob is just as funny and sarcastic as Brian is, and they play off of each other, which has made for some hilarious lunch breaks over the years, just watching the two of them banter back and forth. I care about Rob too, though, and I really hope that all of this is going to turn out alright.

With everything that’s going on with Rob, and with attempting to keep Brian sane while simultaneously trying to make sure everything at Kinnetik is getting done to our usual standards, I don’t really have much brain space to devote to thinking about the fact that my period should have come last week and never did. In fact, I never even realized it. But once I do, suddenly that's the only thing I can think about.

Even with all of the different ways I protect myself -- namely, an IUD and always using condoms too -- the cold, hard truth is that no method of birth control is 100% foolproof. Everything has a failure rate, save for abstinence, of course. So if one is a woman of childbearing age and has an active sex life, there’s always, always a risk of getting pregnant. And any time my period is late, that’s usually the first thought that enters my mind, no matter how remote the possibility may seem.

It hasn’t happened in a long time, because thankfully, my cycle is pretty regular, but this time, that predictable regularity only serves to ratchet up my fears. I want to talk about this with somebody, and normally Brian would be that somebody, but I can’t do that right now because he has more than enough on his plate. Honestly, I think he’s more worried about Rob than he’s willing to admit, so even when he is in the office, he’s very distracted and his mood is… strange. Several of our employees are already avoiding him, which leaves me to be the messenger when someone does need something from Brian that I can’t take care of on my own. And it leaves me taking care of a whole heck of a lot.

So I try to push my worry out of my head, telling myself that I was well protected, so it’s probably just a fluke, and I dive further into work, taking care of a lot of the details of Brian’s accounts as well as my own, trying to make things easier for him. It reminds me a little of the days after the bombing at Babylon, when Brian was physically present in the office, but his mind was clearly elsewhere, and his temper was on a hair trigger. Those of us who know Brian well know how he gets when something happens to someone he cares about and he can’t fix it. But those who don’t -- like our poor interns -- get to bear the brunt of Brian's wrath as he takes out his frustration on them.

Brian and I spend an entire lunch break brainstorming various ideas to get Rob to come and work for us, but we both know that it’s probably not a good time to be trying to sell Rob on anything. I wish he’d come join us too, because I’ve seen what a hard worker he is, and how committed he is to the things he’s passionate about. Brian has been thinking of making a larger investment in GoodLife Robotics for a while now, and if we did that, Rob would be perfect to work closely with them. Still, what he needs right now is stability, so no matter how badly Brian and I want him on our team, if he’s not comfortable making the jump, we have to accept that.

The day of Rob’s surgery, our office schedule is insane, with all of our meetings crammed into the morning hours because Brian plans to take off after lunch so he can go to the hospital. By the time the meetings are over, I’m wishing he would have taken the whole day off, because he spent most of them furtively checking his phone for updates that apparently weren’t coming, and I ended up carrying them pretty much on my own anyhow. So I’m honestly kind of grateful to see him finally leave, because it means I’ll only be managing my own self, instead of trying to take care of everything I’m supposed to be taking care of while also keeping Brian from fucking anything up.

Even amidst all of this distraction, the fact that my period still hasn’t come is weighing heavily on my mind. To be honest, it’s starting to freak me out, though I’ve been trying to play it cool so I don’t end up adding to Brian’s stress. Not to mention the fact that I can’t get Rich’s words out of my head: _What’s going to happen if we decide to have a family someday? Are our kids even going to know who their mother is, or are you going to be spending all of your time at work?_

The bottom line is that I don’t want kids or a family. For one, I feel like I’m too old -- no fucking way do I want to be over 60 with a kid graduating high school. Secondly, while I don’t particularly want to be a mom at all, I really don’t want to be a single mom, but that’s more than likely what I’d be no matter who the kid’s father turns out to be -- Rich or my one-night stand from the bar whose name I don’t even remember. I’m sure I could find him easily enough since he apparently frequents that bar, but the last thing I want to do is walk up to someone and be like, “Hey, remember me? Remember that night we had drunken sex at your apartment? Well, surprise, I’m pregnant!” He already has kids, so I’m sure he doesn’t want to have another one with me. And I’m sure as hell not interested in raising any kids with Rich. So that leaves me, myself, and I -- just like always. The independent woman, now somehow feeling cursed by my own womanhood.

There’s also the question of how it happened in the first place, since I’ve had my IUD for a while, and I always use a condom too -- and the night I spent with the guy from the bar was no exception. But, again, nothing is 100% effective, so it’s definitely possible, though that still doesn’t stop me from feeling a little bit pissed off about it, or like the universe is playing some sort of a sick joke on me.

I’m not sure I’ve ever hoped harder for my period to come in my entire life, but wishing it into existence doesn’t seem to be doing shit.

The one bright spot in my day is the text I get from Brian late in the afternoon, letting me know that Rob’s tumor was benign and they were able to remove all of it, and he’s expected to make a full recovery with no lasting effects. I know Brian is relieved, and I am too, because I love Rob and his adorable little family and I don’t want to see them go through anything more than they have already.

As June turns into July, things start to get back to normal at the office, with Brian and I both working, which means we’re better able to delegate tasks between the two of us. Rob’s recovery is going well, and Brian is a lot less distracted, though he’s still very busy, and so am I. That’s normal too, though. But there’s one thing that still hasn’t gotten back to normal: my period. I’ve already taken a pregnancy test, and it was negative, but the fact that my period still hasn’t come is starting to make me doubt its efficacy.

I’ve been spending some later nights at the office, but I don’t mind because I honestly don’t have anything else to do, since my paranoia about being pregnant is keeping me from wanting to go on a date or have sex with anyone else for the time being. So I’m sitting by myself in an otherwise-empty office, working on a couple of new campaigns, when I suddenly decide to take another test in an attempt to put my mind at ease, even though I know the only thing that would truly do that at this point is the arrival of my period.

Fifteen minutes later, I’m standing in a long checkout line at a very busy drugstore, feeling a whole lot of weird about standing in line holding a pregnancy test. Feeling like people are looking at me and judging me, especially since there’s no ring on my finger. I think about how most women are probably excited when they make this purchase, but some women -- myself included -- are scared to death. In a way, I feel like the inanimate object I’m holding in my hand has the ability to determine my future. And if I get a positive result, I honestly have no idea what I’ll do.

Finally, I get to the front of the line and make my purchase, trying to ignore the smile on the cashier’s face, as if she’s happy for me even though she has no idea who the fuck I am or whether or not I even want a kid. Why do people always seem to assume the possibility of pregnancy is a happy occasion? For me, it would be an absolute fucking disaster.

I go back to the office and let myself back in, soon finding myself on the toilet in the bathroom between Brian’s and my offices, practically holding my breath as I pee on the little stick. I try to keep breathing as I wait for the result, hoping and praying that the second line will stay invisible, indicating I’m not pregnant. But once I’ve waited the prescribed length of time, what I see leaves me feeling more mystified than relieved.

The control line is there, of course, nice and dark. But alongside it is the faintest ghost of a second line, making me wonder if my eyes are playing tricks on me or if I really am pregnant. I’m tempted to go back to the store and get a second test, but the last thing I want to do is have to repeat that experience, which felt eerily like some bizarre walk of shame. After holding the test up to the light and using the flashlight on my phone to try to examine it even more closely, I come to the conclusion that there is definitely something there -- it just isn’t nearly as clear as I would have expected it to be. Still, it’s there.

And I know what it means -- that I have some very important decisions to make.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter may contain a mild trigger for some. Pro-choice views are mentioned but no direct action is implied.

The next morning, I’m back at the office early, mostly because I couldn’t sleep. Anxiety was eating away at me all night long, and part of me wishes I could have called Brian last night, but he and Justin were seeing one of Justin’s artsy friends perform in a show uptown, so I didn’t want to bug him, and I definitely didn’t want to call my mom, who would probably be at least a little bit excited about the prospect of a grandchild even though she respects my decision to not reproduce. So she wouldn’t truly understand my disappointment or my fear.

But another part of me wants to keep it to myself -- my little secret -- until I figure out what I’m going to do.

I spent a lot of time surfing the internet last night as I lay in bed, wide awake, Googling all sorts of things about the accuracy of over-the-counter pregnancy tests, mostly coming away with a lot of information that didn’t exactly leave me feeling confident in _not_ being pregnant. I know I need to confirm with a doctor first, but that isn’t keeping my thoughts from running away with me, entertaining all of the what-ifs. Leaving me stuck in the land of panicked hypothetical situations.

I open up the top drawer of my desk, where the offending test resides, wrapped in tissues, all the way in the back, like I’m punishing it for its transgressions. Maybe I am. I don’t even know why I saved it, because it’s not like this is a moment I’m going to want to remember forever. I should have just thrown it away when I tossed the box before I left last night.

I have so many things to think about and consider, but I don’t really want to think about any of them right now, so I decide to stick my head in the proverbial sand and go about my morning as normal, starting off by opening up my email and scanning through the senders and subject lines, determining what needs to be first priority and what can wait. I’m about halfway through my list when I see Brian go by, giving me a cursory wave on the way into his own office. Then, I hear him go into the bathroom, which is unusual for him to do first thing in the morning, but considering that the show they saw last night was at a bar, it’s likely that he had more alcohol than usual, which always seems to fuck with his routine.

I’ve just finished prioritizing, and I’m about to start replying to a message from the Grape & Wine Association when the door that connects my office to the bathroom slowly opens, and Brian is there, with the box to my pregnancy test in his hand. The first thought in my mind is that I’m firing the cleaning crew, because they should have emptied that trash can -- they’d just come in when I left the office, so I know that task should have been completed after I left. My second thought is wondering where the hell I’m going to start when it comes to explaining this to Brian, who is still just sitting in the doorway, looking at me with confusion and surprise, mixed with concern.

There’s no point in even trying to act like it might belong to someone else, because he and I are the only people who have access to that bathroom. I guess I could blame it on the cleaning crew, but that would be stupid, because I know I’ll have to own up to it eventually, since no matter what I decide, it’s likely going to involve some time off, and Brian is going to be more than a little bit suspicious -- not to mention a whole lot hurt -- if I refuse to tell him why.

It’s not like I was planning to keep it from him anyhow, especially if it turns out that I actually am pregnant, but it isn’t exactly first on the list of things I want to discuss this morning.

So I blurt out, “It’s not what it looks like,” instantly realizing exactly how stupid that sounds, because there’s absolutely nothing else it could possibly be. He found a box to a pregnancy test in the garbage; what else is he supposed to think?

Brian’s incredulous look tells me that he’s definitely not buying, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Okay,” I sigh, looking down at my desk. “Maybe it’s exactly what it looks like.” I pause, and I can see him slowly coming closer out of the corner of my eye, and he opens his mouth to say something, but I cut him off, because I’m seriously not in the mood for a sarcastic remark right now. “However, it’s none of your fucking business.”

I expect him to get a little bit upset at that, but he doesn’t. Instead, he shrugs and says, “Okay. I just thought you might need a friend.”

“Alright, fuck it,” I say, just as he turns to go. “Brian, wait.”

He stops, and I know this might be against my better judgment because I’m still not sure I’m ready to talk about this, but I’m also not sure how much longer I can delay it. And he’s right; I do need a friend. However, I still don’t know where to begin. So I take a deep breath, stalling while I try to figure it out, but Brian cuts right to the chase.

“Was it positive?”

I nod. “Yeah. I mean, I guess so.”

“You guess so?” Brian looks confused, and I don’t blame him. Hell, I was pretty confused last night too. I still am.

I open the desk drawer and dig around in the back of it for what I know is there, while Brian looks at me like he’s wondering what the heck I’m doing. I find what I’m looking for and unwrap it, but when I hold it out for him to see, he jumps back like I’m holding something repulsive.

“Jesus Christ,” he says, his voice almost comically high-pitched. “Get that thing away from me!”

“For heaven’s sake, Brian,” I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “It’s not like I had it _in_ my vagina or anything.”

“Can we not use that word?” Brian visibly shudders, peering at the test that I’m still holding in my hand from what I suppose he deems is a safe distance, while I roll my eyes at how ridiculous he’s being. “So what am I looking for?”

“Right there. That really faint second line.”

“I don’t see anything.”

“You need to come closer.”

“No thanks, I’ll take your word for it.”

“You really are _that_ gay, aren’t you?” I laugh. “It’s just a stick that I peed on. Nothing more.”

“You say that like it’s so simple.”

“Well, it’s not like I’m asking you to give me a pelvic exam to confirm.”

“Don’t even joke about that.” Brian shudders again, only this time he actually looks like he might be sick.

“Oh my god, seriously?!” Now, I’m laughing even harder. “This, from a guy who regularly sticks things up his husband’s ass? Justin’s right; you really are a queen.”

“Hey, there’s a reason why I told Lindsay I couldn’t be straight, and a big part of that was having no desire to look at snatch ever again.” He’s laughing now too, which for some reason, only makes me laugh harder, until I can hardly breathe -- maybe because seeing Brian genuinely laugh is such a rare sight, even though this time it’s technically at my expense. Despite that, it feels good to laugh, and that makes me wonder if at least part of his over-the-top reaction has been an intentional effort to lighten the mood. However, the lightness is short lived, and soon, my gasps turn into sobs, as the full weight of the situation sinks in.

Slowly, Brian makes his way to my office door and pushes it closed, then turns and comes closer to me, though I can tell he’s not really sure what to do next. I know emotional breakdowns definitely aren’t his forte. The last time I cried in front of him was a long time ago, when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Even back then, I knew I was seeing a totally different side of Brian Kinney -- the one that not many people know about. The one who gives really great hugs and also really hates to see someone he cares about hurting.

“Hey,” he says, reaching out and gently taking my hand. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not." Tears are still cascading down my cheeks, and my voice is thick with emotion, but there's nothing I can do about it. "No fucking way is it going to be okay.”

“We’ll figure it out. I'll help you figure it out.”

“Brian, you can’t fix this. You can’t just wave a fucking magic wand and make it not so.”

“I can try.” I look up at him, and he’s got that goofy grin on his face, and I know he’s trying to make me laugh again, but this time, it’s not going to work. I can’t seem to stop the tears, and suddenly all of the anxiety I felt last night comes flooding back -- all of the questions I kept asking myself about what would be the right decision for me and my life, that would also be a decision I could live with for the rest of it.

Brian seems to sense the shift in me, because I feel him let go of my hand, but a second later, he's pulling me into one of those really great hugs, and he doesn't let go until the tears have stopped and my breathing has returned to normal.

However, I don't really feel any better, or any less anxious.

"So, do I need to go kill that Rich bastard?"

I look at him, expecting to see that grin again, but the look on his face is dead serious. “No,” I say. “It’s not his fault.”

“How the hell is it not his fault? He’s the one who can’t keep his dick to himself.”

“Brian, come on. It’s not like him fucking other guys makes his sperm more virile or something.” I pause and take a deep breath, then decide to come clean. “Actually, it might not be his.”

I tell Brian the story of my one-night stand with Mr. Attractive-Enough -- the one I’m now regretting more than I’ve ever regretted anything in my life -- while he just listens, nodding occasionally. It’s not usually like him to go this long without inserting his opinion, but I’m thankful that he isn’t.

When I'm finished, his first question is exactly the one I keep asking myself: "But… if you are pregnant… how? I know you don’t take chances."

I shrug, but I don't say anything.

"Wait… He didn't…" I can tell Brian doesn't want to finish that sentence, but I know what he's getting at, and that much is clear from the deep concern that has suddenly overtaken his features.

"No." I shake my head vehemently and look Brian square in the eye so he knows there's absolutely no question as to what took place that night, even though we were both pretty drunk. "I wanted it. We both did."

"But I know you. I know you're always careful."

"And we were that night too.” I look down as my fingers find their way to a loose paperclip on the surface of my desk and start fidgeting with it -- a nervous habit I’m sure I’ve picked up from Brian over the years. But it’s a nice distraction. “Who knows, maybe the condoms in my purse were too old. Usually the guys have them, but he didn't, so we used one of mine. But I haven't needed them in a while." 

"I'll spare you Justin's public service announcement about how condoms can become brittle with age."

"That's probably a good idea, unless you want to be punched.” I look up at Brian, and I can see the mischievous glint in his eyes, though he thankfully doesn’t say anything further. “Trust me, lesson learned. So it could be Rich’s, but it could be this other guy’s. I honestly don’t know. But it doesn’t matter anyway. If I am pregnant, I do know I’m not keeping it. But, other than that... I don’t know.” Those three words seem to be the theme of my thoughts for the past twelve hours.

“Too bad Ted and Blake aren’t in the market for another. Michael and Ben might be interested though.”

“Christ, Brian, you’re making it sound like I’m selling something.”

“Well, wouldn’t you be?”

“No, Brian. We’re not talking about a used car. As much as I don’t want a child, and as much as I don’t even really like them, you can’t sell children.”

“I guess that’s a good thing, otherwise Pop probably would have sold me on the street corner for a bottle of scotch.”

“Brian, that’s not funny. I know what you’re trying to do, and I appreciate it, but this is just…” I let my voice trail off for a moment before I continue. “It sucks.”

“I know.” Brian looks down and starts picking at one of his fingers. “I’m sorry.” After a moment, he looks back up at me, his concern clear in his eyes. “So… if you are... What do you think you’ll do? I know you said you’re not keeping it, but...”

“...there are other options, I know.”

I’m well aware of what my other option is, besides adoption -- to terminate the pregnancy. The trouble is, now that I’m confronted with the possibility, I’m not sure I could do it. I definitely support every woman’s right to choose, but when it comes to choosing to do it myself, there are a lot of thoughts running through my head that I never thought I’d have. I’d never judge anyone else for making the decision that’s right for them, whatever it is, but honestly, I’m not sure I’d be able to live with the result of that particular decision for the rest of my life. 

But on the other hand, would I be willing to carry it to term, even with the intent of giving it up for adoption?

I don't know. I honestly don't. But I do know I'll have to do a lot of soul searching to find out.

"Maybe you should take another test… just to be sure," Brian says, and I can tell by the look on his face that he’d like just as much as I would for this particular test to be wrong. 

"Buying this one was bad enough.” I huff out a sardonic laugh. “The cashier's lucky I kept my mouth shut. No way am I doing that again."

"I'll do it,” Brian says earnestly. “I'll get it for you.”

Now, I know Brian, and I've heard the story about him going out and buying pads for Rob and Adam's daughter Esme, and I know how pissed off he gets when people think he's straight, so I know him volunteering to go buy a pregnancy test, risking people assuming he's the father, even… That's big. But I'm not asking him to do that.

"I'm not sure I’d trust it, to be totally honest, so I’ll pass. But thanks,” I say, giving Brian a smile that I hope conveys my sincere appreciation for his willingness to make himself uncomfortable on my behalf. Actually, I can tell by his posture and his facial expression that he’s a little bit uncomfortable even having this conversation, but he’s not making any move to leave me hanging or cut me off. He’s staying, and he’s listening, and that means more to me than I’m sure he’ll ever realize.

"So… what now?"

"I guess I’m making a doctor’s appointment. Find out for sure, for better or for worse,” I sigh. “I think I still can't believe this is happening to me, of all people."

“Well, if it turns out you are, whatever you need… I’ll cover you.”

“Thanks, but you don’t have to do that. This is my mess, not yours.”

“I know I don’t have to. I want to. Lord knows you’ve saved my ass enough times over the years. You keep telling me how we’re a team here -- a family. I might not know a whole lot about functional families, but I do know they support each other. So, whatever I can do… time off, a shoulder to cry on, a drink… Just tell me, and consider it done.”

“I’ll pass on the drink,” I chuckle. “Being that I might be pregnant and all.”

“Shit. See, I suck at this.”

“No you don’t.” I can’t help but smile as I think about how lucky I am that we met all those years ago working for Marty Ryder, because I can’t imagine working for -- or being friends with -- anybody else. “You’re actually pretty good at it. Just promise me you won’t take out a hit on Rich or anybody else.”

“If I have to.”

“We can’t have you going to prison on my account.” I let out a chuckle and shake my head. “Justin would kill me.”

“Just don’t ask me to… check anything… down there.”

“Jesus Christ, Brian.” I’m back to laughing, and I’m wondering if he’s being ridiculous on purpose again, but this time, I’ll take it. It’s a nice reprieve. “Just what the hell do you think the husbands of straight pregnant women do?”

“Fuck if I know! I’m married to a man, and he doesn’t have a uterus.”

“You _have_ a child, for god’s sake. It’s not like you’ve never been around a pregnant woman before.”

“Yeah, but Melanie took care of all that. I just showed up at the hospital -- late.”

“Because you were busy meeting your soulmate,” I smile.

“Or jerking him off and making him come all over my new duvet.” Brian smirks, taking my sappy observation and turning it into a joke, as he’s always been prone to do when things get a little too ‘real.’ However, his expression quickly turns serious again. “But, I meant what I said. I’m here for you, no matter what. I promise you won’t be alone in this. I’ll be here the whole way, if you’ll have me. If you want me to be.”

I reach out for Brian’s hand and squeeze it, grateful to have someone like him in my corner, and to know the person he really is, underneath the surface. “Of course I’ll have you,” I say, as I look into his eyes and I see all of the things there that most people don’t see -- the selflessness and the sincerity and genuine caring that are part of the man I’m proud to call my friend and my business partner. “I wouldn’t want anybody else.”


	6. Chapter 6

Talking to Brian doesn't necessarily make me feel better, but it does help me feel a lot less alone. I make the necessary phone call to schedule an appointment with my doctor, and I'm more than a little disappointed that it will take a week to get in, because I need to know _now_. But, there’s nothing I can do, so in the end, there’s nothing _left_ to do except wait. So I end up burying myself in work, purely for the sake of distraction. What can I say? Brian taught me well.

Luckily, there’s plenty that needs to be done, so I have a pretty solid excuse for spending late hours at the office, even though my real reason is just because I don’t want to sit alone in my apartment and have to think about the disaster my life has become. Rich has been sending me occasional text messages, all some variation on the theme of, _I miss you. I’m sorry. Please give me another chance._

However, there’s no way in hell he’s getting a second chance with me -- especially not now.

So I continue ignoring his texts, swiping away the notification with nothing more than a brief glance each time my phone ‘dings’ with a new one. By the fifth message, I’ve turned off notifications and by the eighth message, I’m ready to block his ass completely, but I don’t get very far into that process before my office phone starts ringing. It’s a Connecticut area code this time, but I’m not super surprised to see that because I know exactly who’s calling, given that we’re in the final steps of producing a series of videos for the Connecticut Office of Tourism that includes television ads as well as a free, online webseries narrated by some B-list actor I’d never heard of who happens to be from Hartford, giving people ideas for planning trips and tours to his home state that he probably hadn’t been to in years before we flew him out to shoot the videos. But, they came to us with him already chosen, and it was what they wanted, though to be honest, I’m pretty proud of how everything turned out.

When I pick up the phone, I’m assuming that my contact has had a chance to take a look at the videos herself and wants to chat, so I’ve got a smile in my voice when I greet her with a cheerful, “Hello, Marcia, what can I do for you?”

However, her tone is nowhere near as cheerful when she ignores my question and utters a terse, somewhat-anxious, “We need to talk.”

Fifteen minutes later, my beautiful ads as well as the webseries might as well be garbage, because it turns out that our B-list actor has apparently been getting a little too friendly with his costars, and now there are over a dozen women saying he assaulted them, some up to a decade ago.

So, long story short, Marcia wants him gone, the tourism board wants him gone, and I do too, because the last thing I want is for my work to feature some asshole who can’t keep his hands to himself or thinks women are objects for his perusal. But, since everything is already finished and we literally just received the final cut of the webseries videos yesterday, getting his face and his voice out of the ad campaign means reshooting a lot of footage, which is going to take a lot of time that we don’t really have. But I guess now we have to find the time -- we don’t have much choice, because they’re counting on this campaign.

When I hang up with Marcia, I’m honestly not sure where to start. I have to find somebody else on short notice, preferably with a local connection, who’s available to travel so we can reshoot the necessary footage. Not to mention getting the entire production crew lined up again, which wasn’t an easy feat the first time. I promised Marcia I’d still deliver, but I have absolutely no idea how I’m going to do that.

I spend the rest of the afternoon scouring the internet for somebody -- anybody -- who might be able to fill in at the last minute, and I come up totally empty. Meanwhile, I’ve got other tasks and other accounts that I still need to be working on, which leaves me wishing I could somehow clone myself so I could get twice as much done, but still up to my high standards.

I know Brian would be willing to help, but I’ve seen his calendar and I know he’s basically booked up for the rest of the week with client meetings and tight deadlines, including a quick overnight trip to Chicago to meet with a new client who wants a national campaign. So it looks like I’m on my own with this one.

By the time I get home, I’m so exhausted that I end up practically falling into bed shortly after finishing the takeout I picked up on my way home from the office, and I try to ignore the fact that feeling more tired than usual is another indicator of pregnancy.

The next morning, I continue my aimless, desperate search for actors and other low-key famous people who happen to be from Connecticut, in between my own client meetings and conference calls. I’ve just clicked onto yet another page of what must be my umpteenth Google search when Brian appears outside my office door.

“Got any lunch plans?” he asks, lingering in the doorway for a moment before coming in and parking himself in front of my desk. “I asked Rob if he wanted to join us, but he’s still on house arrest.”

“Not everyone thinks of recuperating at home as ‘house arrest,’” I laugh, before I focus my attention back on my screen and the task at hand. “And unfortunately, I can’t go either. Gotta find a new spokesperson for these Visit Connecticut ads.”

“What? Why? I thought you had what’s-his-face doing them. Actually, I thought they were done.”

“Steven Smith. And they were. But it turns out that Mr. Smith is apparently a world class asshole who thinks with his dick, and also thought it was okay to assault about a dozen different women. I knew there was something about him I didn’t like. Anyway, everyone involved in the project wants him gone. Hell, so do I, but that means I’m back to square fucking one on most of this campaign.”

“What can I do to help?” Brian comes closer, peering at my screen, where I’ve been striking out left and right looking for someone else who could star in these videos for us.

“You can wave that magic wand of yours and make someone appear who’s from Connecticut, charismatic, doesn’t mind appearing on-camera, and is available ASAP to go reshoot these videos.”

“No magic wand, but I can help you look. Any preferences, or are we desperate enough that we’ll go with just about anybody?”

“Don’t you have a meeting this afternoon?”

“I do, but I can skip lunch.”

“You’re not skipping lunch. Justin will kill me if he finds out you came home again without eating, and it was all on my account.”

“Fine, then we’ll order in. But I can help you for at least a couple of hours.”

We order salads and sandwiches from the cafe on the ground floor of our building and set to collaborating in my office, me on my desktop and Brian on his laptop, having taken up residence in the armchair in the corner of my office, with his feet up in his wheelchair. Soon, however, two hours have passed and we are still no closer to finding someone else who can do this for us. We’ve each made about a dozen phone calls to potential candidates, but no one is available on such short notice.

Brian goes to his meeting, and I have no choice but to shift my attention to a couple of my other accounts that have deadlines fast approaching. Brian is heading to Chicago in the morning, so I won’t be seeing him in the office until Friday, and I’m not sure how I’m going to manage everything by myself while at the same time trying to find someone who can save our asses by agreeing to help us reshoot these ads. I know I’ll do it -- I always do -- but to be totally honest, between this and everything that’s happening in my personal life, I’m more than a little bit overwhelmed.

So it’s another late night of takeout and exhaustion for me, and I really wish I could just have a glass of wine, but I’m not going to do that. I’m up early the next morning so I can get to the office ahead of everyone else, praying that today’s the day when the new Connecticut tourism spokesperson falls out of the sky and into my lap.

My cell phone rings no less than five minutes after I arrive in the office, and I think to myself that it better not be Rich, trying a new tactic for his groveling, but it’s Brian.

“Hey, you. Did you forget something?” I tease, fully expecting that Brian needs me to forward him some file that he forgot to copy over to his laptop, or make one of his many last-minute, obsessive tweaks.

“I think I’ve got our new spokesperson,” he says, completely ignoring my question. There’s a lot of background noise on his end of the line, and I can hear a muffled voice making an announcement over the loudspeaker. “Shit, I have to go. But I’ll have Justin text you -- turns out one of his actor friends is actually from Connecticut, and Justin thinks he’ll be more than willing to do it. Hold on a sec.” I hear some rustling, then a beep and Brian talking to someone in the airport, then he’s back on the line with me. “Anyway, I’m about to board, so I’ll let you go. But hopefully this guy can save us.”

As I say goodbye to Brian and hang up, I think to myself that I hope he can too.

As promised, I get a message from Justin a few minutes later with the guy's contact info and a link to his YouTube channel. He's definitely younger than our original guy, but that might be a good thing -- fresh perspective. Sure, we already have the scripts finalized, and he'll just be reading them, but he seems like he'll bring some new life and excitement to the project, just from what I see on YouTube. Justin has already given him a heads up that I might be calling, so he's not super surprised to hear from me, and we don't have to talk very long before I know this is going to work out perfectly. Soon, I've got legal emailing him a contract and we're working out a tentative shooting schedule, contingent on the availability of the film crew.

Though I’ve made progress, I’m still not totally out of the woods yet on this project, and on top of that I still have everything else on my to-do list staring back at me from my computer screen, looking daunting. Normally, I’m not one to get overwhelmed by my to-do list, but between that and everything else in my life that just plain feels fucked up, ‘overwhelmed’ doesn’t even feel like the right word.

I try to take everything one step at a time, making my way through each item carefully and methodically, but by lunchtime, I’m so exhausted that I can barely hold my eyes open, and I’m wondering if this is what I have to look forward to for the next nine months, if I am pregnant. At least I’m more than halfway through this week already, because my doctor’s appointment can’t come soon enough.

Not that it will change anything, if my fears turn out to be true. But at least I’ll know for sure.

I take a break in between phone calls to just lean back in my chair and close my eyes, and I nearly jump out of my skin when Christina says my name from the doorway, her voice hesitant and quiet, but just enough to bring me back to full awareness.

“Sorry,” she says, once my eyes have come into focus and settled on her. “I had a couple of things I wanted to run by you. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” I say, perhaps trying to convince myself as much as I’m trying to convince her.

“Okay,” she says, though I can hear in her voice that she doesn’t quite believe me. We spend a few minutes going over the things she wanted to ask me about, and I feel like her eyes are appraising me the entire time, even though she likely isn’t -- it’s all in my imagination because I feel like I might as well have a flashing neon sign on my head that says, “Pregnant.”

Brian calls me mid-afternoon, supposedly to give me an update on how his first meeting went, though I can tell from the unusually large amount of questions he asks that he’s really just checking up on me, though he’d never outwardly admit to that, because that wouldn’t be his style. I can tell he’s worried, but he’s also leaving the ball in my court as to how much help I want to ask for. And I love him for that; he knows me well.

I feel like I probably should stay late at the office, because I have so much I need to get done, but I end up going home right on time because I’m just too tired to stay. I hate to say that, but it is what it is. When I get to my apartment, I toe off my shoes in the middle of the living room and collapse onto the sofa, wondering how on earth I’m going to keep going if this complete and total lack of energy keeps up. Louis jumps up onto the cushion next to me and pushes his head underneath my hand -- his way of asking me to pet him, by essentially making it happen himself. I’m happy to oblige, of course, and the feeling of his silky fur against my skin seems to have a calming effect on me. Maybe Louis knew that was what I needed, because I’ve spent most of the last few days feeling like I want to scream.

Why me? That’s the question I can’t seem to get out of my head. What did I do to make the universe see fit to give me the one thing in this world that I’d never want to have happen?

I know that’s the million-dollar question that a lot of people ask about a lot of different situations, but I still feel like I need an answer.

I remember sitting with Brian in his office in Pittsburgh almost thirteen years ago -- though I still can’t believe it’s been that long -- as he asked himself the same question. He’d been in a terrible mood all day, so I’d been trying to steer clear as much as possible, only stealing furtive glances at him through the glass door to his office because I was concerned, and I knew that there was probably something completely different underlying his snarky attitude and cantankerous disposition. He’d been like that most of the time since he’d come back to work after his accident, and I was never quite sure if it was physical pain or purely frustration that was causing it, though I figured it was likely a little of both. I heard him talking to Justin, as had become customary on Wednesday afternoons, ever since Justin had left for New York, and, as usual, the way he sounded as he talked on the phone was completely different from how he’d been all day. They talked for more than thirty minutes, and I could hear bits and pieces of the conversation, which was mostly about Justin’s art. Every time it seemed like Justin had tried to shift the focus onto Brian, Brian would shift it back to Justin. He hung up the phone sounding positive, but the second he put the phone down, his posture immediately changed as he slumped forward, propping his elbow up on his desk and pinching the space between his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

Perhaps against my better judgment, I’d gotten up from my desk and gone into Brian’s office -- not to ask something from my boss, but to check on my friend. He didn’t even look up as I opened the door and walked in, but it was obvious he knew it was me when he said, “I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

That statement could have applied to many different things, but I knew what it was about, because Ted and I had been trying to encourage Brian to tell Justin what was really going on, and I knew via Ted that everyone else in Brian’s circle of friends had been trying to do the same. We all respected his right and his desire to tell Justin in his own time -- even Debbie, which surprised the hell out of me, given the stories I’d heard -- but we all really, really wished he would do it, because all of us could see how much he was struggling, and how big of a toll it was taking on him to pretend everything was okay every week when he talked to Justin.

“Then don’t,” I said. “Tell him. There’s no need for it to be a secret.”

“I don’t know how to say it. I can’t. I just keep wishing it hadn’t happened at all.” He paused, finally looking up at me for the first time since I’d come into the room, and I could see the tears in his eyes. For all of the times since he’d come back to work that I’d practically dragged him out of the office, even going so far as to drive him home myself more than once, the only emotion I’d seen come out of him about this was anger. But this looked like defeat -- not something I would ever have associated with Brian Kinney. “I just keep wondering why my life is such a fucking mess. Why me? What did I do?”

I remember wanting to give him a hug, but the way he was sitting wouldn’t have allowed for it very easily, and I didn’t want to ask permission. Maybe I should have. I don’t know. Either way, the thing I remember the most was how much I wished I had an answer for him -- that I could somehow pull profound wisdom out of the air to make all of this make sense. But I couldn’t.

I didn’t have an answer for Brian back then, just like I don’t have an answer for myself now. All I could do was support him and be there for him every step of the way. So I did. And eventually, it all worked out. I have to hope the same will be true for me.

It doesn’t matter how many times you ask yourself “why” -- sometimes the universe doesn’t have an answer for you. All you can do is try to get through, leaning on your support system the whole way. Still, it’s hard to be the one who needs help, and I know Brian understands that, perhaps better than anyone else I know.

But just like Brian had all of us back then, I know I have him now. And I’m grateful for that. For right now, that’ll have to be enough.


	7. Chapter 7

I wake up the next morning feeling like absolute shit, and for a brief moment, I wonder if this is the fabled “morning sickness.” Is it too early for that? I don’t know. Hell, I don’t know anything about this.

It doesn’t seem like it would be though, since it’s not nausea -- it’s just an overall shitty feeling, combined with a backache that’s more than a little bit annoying before I’ve even rolled out of bed. And when I finally manage to drag myself out of bed and to the bathroom to pee, my problems compound when I realize that it hurts to pee. Great, I think to myself, now I’ve probably got a urinary tract infection. Just what I need to be the cherry on top of the pile of shit that my life is becoming.

I’d love to go back to bed and stay there, pulling the covers up over my head to shut out the world and pretend that none of this is happening. But I have to go to work, because Brian is counting on me and so is everyone else.

So I take a shower, get dressed, eat some breakfast, and make my way to the subway station, stopping at a drugstore on the way to pick up a couple of bottles of cranberry juice and some Azo, in hopes that might help me make it through until my appointment on Monday, because I don’t have time to waste half of my day sitting in the waiting room at urgent care, just to get some antibiotics.

When I get to the office, I find a post-it note from Jonathan stuck to my office door, asking me to come see him ASAP. Knowing Jonathan, I seriously doubt it’s an emergency, but I also know that if I don’t go see him, he’ll be in my office shortly, all kinds of pissed off because I didn’t, and the absolute last thing I need this morning is a queen-out from Jonathan, particularly with Brian not here to out-queen him. (Though Brian will insist that he himself isn’t a queen, he totally is. And when Jonathan gets carried away, Brian is the best person to deal with him, because my first reaction is usually to seriously consider slapping him, which HR would probably frown upon.)

I drop my bag in my chair, along with the sack from the drugstore, and walk back toward Jonathan’s desk, which sits in the reception area in front of the main elevator -- an area I typically bypass by taking the employee entrance to the building and the rear elevator instead. When I get there, I slap the post-it note down on his desk and give him a look that dares him to cross me, but he somehow doesn’t seem to give a shit, which is something that’s always amazed me about him (and made me wonder why Brian likes him so much, since he treats Brian the same way). Instead, he shoves a folder at me that contains a couple of pieces of paper with flags marking the spaces for me to initial or sign -- paperwork for the new intern I forgot about in the middle of all of the upheaval that’s been happening in the office and in my life. She’s a graphic artist, and she’ll be helping Christina, which in turn should help me as well. It’s good timing, because I’m sure I’ll probably need it.

With Jonathan’s “emergency” taken care of, I walk back to my office, wanting so badly to strut away from his desk with my heels clicking across the floor like I mean business, but I feel so shitty that I just don’t have the energy to put into that. In fact, I’m probably about to take these shoes off and not put them back on for the rest of the day. Thankfully, I don’t have any meetings with clients today, so I’m free to do whatever I please, although I really, really wish I could break into my wine stash.

Since I don’t have any meetings, I’m hoping for a relatively quiet day, in spite of Brian’s absence. However, what I end up getting is anything but. All day long, people are in and out of my office, asking inane questions about stupid shit, or otherwise needing hand-holding to get things done that they should easily be able to take care of on their own. But since Brian wants to micromanage every little thing, people are used to getting his approval on _everything_ before they proceed. I don’t need that, nor do I _want_ that -- and I definitely don’t want to deal with it today. Not on a day when I already feel like shit.

But somehow I manage not to bite anyone’s head off or make anyone cry -- at least for the morning hours. Still, by the time noon rolls around, I’m more than ready to escape from the office for a bit before I go insane. I’d really like to leave the building, but given that I’m exhausted, and it’s also hotter than the depths of hell outside, I choose to stay in the air conditioning and go downstairs to the cafe on the ground floor. Honestly, the only thing that cafe has going for it as far as Brian and I are concerned is its close proximity to our office and the fact that they can deliver in less than ten minutes, but in a pinch -- which is exactly what I’m in today -- it’ll do. However, I don’t get more than five feet in the door before I see a familiar face at a table in the corner -- a face that I definitely do not want to see today or any other day. I turn to leave immediately, hoping he didn’t notice me, but I hear his voice calling my name, and before I can reach for the door, he’s right behind me, reaching around me to hold it for me.

“I can get it my own damn self,” I say, my voice tight. I don’t turn around; I keep right on walking out the door and toward the elevators.

“I know you can,” Rich says, following me. “I was just trying to be polite.”

I stop right in my tracks and spin around. “Or maybe you just want a little woman to take care of, so you can feel like a big, strong man," I say. "I thought I made myself clear that isn’t what I want, and that if it’s what you want, you should look elsewhere. Although according to Brian, you already have been.”

Rich opens his mouth to say something -- probably something disparaging about Brian, whom I really think Rich is sort of jealous of -- but I cut him off.

“I have nothing else to say to you, and I don’t want to see you. We’re done here, and everywhere else, for good,” I say, shifting my gaze over to our building’s daytime security guard, Joe, who has been watching our conversation since we came out of the cafe. “That man over there--” I pause and gesture discreetly in Joe’s direction, “--will do anything I ask. So if you can’t see yourself out on your own, I have no problem asking him to assist, on a much more permanent basis.”

“Cyn, I just wanted to talk. I was hoping I could catch you--”

“Well, you did. And now you can stop. This is the _only_ time I’m asking. We are done, for good. I’m not interested in talking, or in reconnecting, or whatever else you were after when you came here. Please don’t try to contact me again.” This is really the last thing I needed today, because I feel so physically terrible, and I’m having a terrible day to go with it. But I’m trying my best to be totally on top of my no-nonsense, I-mean-business game -- I just hope I’m succeeding.

“Look, I know I fucked up.” Rich is keeping his voice low, but I can see the desperation in his eyes. “I’m sorry. I really like you, and I think maybe we could work it out--”

“Like I said on the phone, you and I are not on the same page when it comes to what we want out of life _or_ a relationship,” I say, cutting him off before he can voice any more of his pointless pleas. “Again, if you can’t see yourself out…” I let my voice trail off as I glance in Joe’s direction again.

“Fine,” Rich sighs, throwing his hands up in frustration. “But it doesn’t have to end this way--”

“No, it does. It’s over. It was over weeks ago. Please, just go.” I can feel my facade starting to crack a tiny bit, simply because I’m so tired and I feel like shit, and the last thing I want to do is continue arguing over this. Thankfully, Rich does turn and go, walking out the door on his own, with Joe’s eyes following him the whole way. As he walks by the floor-to-ceiling windows that line the front of our building, Rich gives me one last glance over his shoulder, with the same disappointment and regret in his eyes, before disappearing around the corner and out of sight.

As soon as he’s gone, I turn back around and take the last few steps toward the elevator and punch the button, stepping inside when the door slides open. I manage to keep my air of confidence until the doors close, but the moment they do, I find myself sagging against the back wall of the elevator, my knees feeling weak as all of the adrenaline that had been coursing through me during our little “encounter” suddenly leaves my body.

I just have to hope that it's over now -- that he's finally gotten the message, loud and clear -- and that it’s the last time we’ll ever have to interact. I’m also sort of wishing I’d listened to Brian in the first place, even though his initial objections were ridiculous and more than a little off-base, if only because it would have helped me avoid this mess entirely. Actually, it might have helped me avoid even more than that.

Maybe staying in bed and pulling the covers over my head wouldn't have been such a bad idea after all.

By the time I get upstairs, I’m feeling nauseous, and I barely make it into Brian’s and my private bathroom before I’m throwing up what little I’ve eaten today, not quite sure if my sickness is from stress or from pregnancy, or perhaps a little of both. I still can’t believe what just happened -- not that I think Rich was necessarily stalking me, or that he’s dangerous, but just the fact that he was sitting there waiting on me is enough to make me feel a little uneasy, if only because it’s just plain weird and desperate. 

I know his behavior isn’t really about me -- over these last couple of weeks, it’s become abundantly clear to me that Rich’s desire to get back with me isn’t about me at all. It’s about him, and his ego. Getting what he wants. And as I sit on the bathroom floor, dry heaving, the only thing I can feel in my stomach is the heaviness of fear and anxiety, as my body reminds me of one more possible connection Rich and I have -- that I may be pregnant with his child, though even if that turns out to be the case, I have absolutely no intention of ever informing him of that, given that I’m not keeping it. I definitely don’t want to see him now. I don’t want anything to do with him, and if he tries to see me again, I won’t hesitate to have him escorted from the premises.

When it seems like the upheaval in my stomach is over, I sit back against the wall, tilting my head back against the tile. Now, I’m actually grateful Brian isn’t in the office today, because the last thing I want is for him to see me like this. I know there’s no shame in it, and that I’ve seen him in far more compromising positions, but this fear and anxiety in the face of the unknown is making me feel weak, and that’s not a feeling I want to succumb to. I pride myself on being a strong woman who doesn’t take any crap off of anybody and always gets exactly what she wants, but lately, it seems like I’m being tested, and I’m starting to feel like I’m failing miserably.

Another reason I’m glad Brian isn’t here is because I know if he was, he’d be on his way to personally kick Rich’s metaphorical ass right now, and to make sure that Rich understands his place, in no uncertain terms. But as satisfying as that would be, it wouldn’t really help matters. There’s nothing that can help me now -- I’m stuck, and there’s no escape route. Monday can’t come soon enough, if for no other reason than to answer some of the questions that are still floating out there, unanswered, keeping me from knowing exactly where I’m going. Leaving me wondering when I went from feeling like I had everything figured out to having no idea where my life is going to lead.

Finally, I manage to pick myself up off the bathroom floor, rinse my mouth out, drink some water, and get back to my desk. I decide to keep my office door shut, in hopes it might help keep out at least a few of the people who might come in, and it seems to work, as I keep seeing people pass by, glancing through the window in my office door, but they keep on walking, and that’s fine with me. The only person I do let in is Christina, because the two of us have legitimate work we need to do, but I can tell she’s concerned about me, in spite of my best efforts to pretend nothing is wrong and her own efforts to try to respect my privacy. She probably would be a good person to open up to, but I don’t feel ready for that just yet.

When six o’clock finally comes, I’m beyond ready to go home, having spent most of the afternoon in and out of the bathroom, either peeing or otherwise feeling sick, and hoping beyond hope that this isn’t what I have to look forward to over the next nine months.

Just because I want to do something that feels normal, I pick up my favorite chicken noodle soup from the deli near my apartment, since I never ate lunch, and I lost most of my breakfast and morning snack. It’s all I can do to force the soup down, but I manage it, despite the queasy feeling in my stomach. I’ve always been good at dealing with stress -- with a seemingly innate ability to keep myself grounded and focused even when things get crazy -- but right now, I feel like I’m stuck on a merry-go-round, pulling me around in a dizzying circle with no end in sight, and I can’t jump off, but I sure as hell don’t want to stay on either.

By morning, the nausea is gone, though the shitty feeling remains, and I’m not sure the juice and the over-the-counter meds are doing much for me, but it is what it is. I’ll get it all taken care of on Monday. Brian and I have an important lunch meeting today, wining and dining a potential new client, so I put on my power suit and try my best to hide the dark circles under my eyes with makeup. However, Brian sees straight through my facade almost immediately.

I’ve only been in my office for a few minutes when he comes in, bearing coffee and doughnuts, which might sound strange given his typical avoidance of carbs, but these doughnuts are apparently an exception to his rules, because he brings them in almost every Friday, just for the two of us.

“Decaf,” he says, as he lifts one of the cups out of the tray sitting in his lap and double checks the markings on the side to make sure he’s not giving me his triple shot nonfat latte, I’m sure.

“Ugh,” I groan. “Don’t remind me.”

“Sorry.” He looks up at me and shrugs. “Though you do look like you could use some caffeine.” The look in his eyes is apologetic -- an expression you don’t see out of Brian Kinney very often -- and I can tell he feels guilty for having been out of town the last two days. “I just remember Lindsay going on and on about how terrible and dangerous it was, when she was pregnant with Gus.”

“Don’t remind me about that either.”

“What, that Lindsay was pregnant with Gus?” Brian is smirking now, and I know he’s about to attempt turning my mood around with humor, though I’m not sure yet whether or not I’m ready for that today.

“No, smartass. Pregnancy in general. I don’t want to think about it.” Truthfully, I want to spend the next few days pretending that everything is a-okay, even if it’s not. “It’s already taking over my entire fucking life, and I don’t even know yet if it’s actually happening. Though the universe seems destined to remind me, over and over again.”

I never intended to tell Brian about Rich’s little “visit” yesterday, but I end up doing it anyway, perhaps because I can’t stand to keep it to myself any longer. And, just as I predicted, Brian immediately wants to know where Rich’s office is so they can have a “talk.” I do manage to talk Brian out of that, though if I were Rich, I’d steer clear of that gay bar near Brian and Justin’s apartment, at least for the foreseeable future.

“You can go home, if you want,” Brian says, once I’ve convinced him not to try to avenge my honor and we’re back to discussing how shitty I feel. “I can do that meeting on my own.”

“No.” I shake my head, knowing that there is no way in hell I’m giving in this easily. “I’ll be fine.”

Brian gives me a pointed look, and I almost laugh at the irony of him being the one trying to convince me to go home. I also know he’s about to have just as much success with me as I usually do with him -- none at all.

“If you start treating me like I’m going to break, I will kick your ass,” I say, hoping my tone conveys just how serious I am.

Brian holds his hands up in mock surrender. “Sorry. Just trying to help.”

“I know.” I let my expression soften the tiniest bit. “And I appreciate that, but really, I’m okay. I’ll figure it out.”

He nods and sets one of the two paper bags he had in his lap on my desk. “I know you will. You always do.” With that, he turns and leaves my office, heading in the direction of his own. I open up the bag and see he’s brought me my two favorite flavors, even though I’ve never said as much -- he’s just observed it. That’s just Brian, though -- always paying attention, quietly doing nice things for the people he cares about, sometimes big and sometimes small. The selfless person underneath the aloof, seemingly self-absorbed facade.

I do manage to make it through the rest of the day, though this time it’s Brian who’s covering for me in our lunch meeting, because I’m so distracted by how awful I feel that it’s all I can do to sit there with a smile on my face for an hour. We get the account though, and we leave the restaurant with contracts signed and go back to the office together, with Brian casting me furtive looks of concern in the back of the car the whole way. We go our separate ways at the office, each working on our own projects until five o’clock, when Brian appears at my office door with his briefcase in his lap.

“I’m heading home,” he says. “Why don’t you do the same?”

It takes some convincing, and I wonder for a moment if he’s going to turn the tables on me and physically pull me out of my chair and down the hallway to the elevator, but in the end, he doesn’t have to. I’m exhausted, and I can’t deny that going home and going to bed, even before the sun sets, sounds really fucking good right now.

So I sigh and pack up my bag, following Brian out of the office, which is already deserted because Brian has made a habit lately of letting everyone leave early on most Fridays, though I’m not sure why. It actually started when Rob was at the height of his work-related crisis, and that makes me wonder if it might be part of some subconscious effort on Brian’s part to not be “that” boss who doesn’t let his employees have a life outside of the office.

When we get downstairs, I’m ready to head down the street to the subway, but Brian has a car already waiting for us. The driver drops Brian off first, because his apartment is closer to the office than mine, but as he waits for the driver to unload his wheelchair from the trunk, he turns to me, a serious expression on his face.

“I want you to take care of yourself,” he says, echoing back to me the words I’ve said to him so many times. “Rest. Take some time off if you need to. We’re okay at the office. I’ll make sure everything that needs to be done gets done. You don’t have anything to worry about when it comes to us.”

I’m not sure why his words strike me the way they do, but I can feel the tears welling up in my eyes and the lump rising in the back of my throat, in spite of my best efforts to push it all down. I’m not normally an emotional person, so I don’t know if this is pregnancy or just the fact that I’m so fucking overwhelmed right now. I look away, trying to give myself a moment to blink back the tears and regain my composure, but the second I do, I can feel Brian’s hand come to rest over mine, which is laying in my lap.

He squeezes it gently, and I turn to face him again, even though my vision is still blurred with tears. In his eyes, I can see how deeply he cares and how much he means what he’s saying, and that makes it even harder to hold myself together.

“I’m here for you, like I said I would be,” he says. “Let me.”

He squeezes my hand one more time before he lets go, then hoists himself out of the back seat of the car and into his chair. He gives me a small smile as he backs up a little, then says, “Call me if you need anything. I mean that too.”

I nod without saying anything, then watch as he closes the door and goes into the building he and Justin have called home for over a decade.

And as the driver pulls away from the curb and makes the turn to head north toward my own apartment, a single tear finds its way out of my eye and slides silently down my cheek.


	8. Chapter 8

The weekend turns out to be the longest one of my life, between feeling like crap and just plain waiting for Monday to get here. I hardly leave my apartment between Friday night and Monday morning, partly because I’m so tired, but mostly because I don’t feel like doing my usual activities, which would normally include finding someone who looks interesting and mature on one of my dating apps and grabbing some dinner and drinks. I know I could still do the date and dinner, sans drinks, but I also know that I’d be thinking the entire time about how this is exactly how I got myself into the mess I’m currently in. So, for now, it’s probably best to avoid the situation entirely, even if that means turning into a homebody.

Louis is pretty good company, though. I jokingly think to myself that maybe he’s the only man I need, even though I know that makes me sound like a crazy cat lady, which is not something I want to be. Still, though, I have to wonder how all of this is going to turn out, and how my life will change if Monday’s appointment confirms my worst fears -- and with the way things have been going, it looks like it will.

Brian calls to check on me more than once, just as I figured he would. I know he’s worried about me, and I hate that because he’s got enough going on in his own life without having to take on any of my drama. I pride myself on being self-sufficient -- not needing anyone to worry about me or help me -- but I might soon have to make some concessions, whether I want to or not. I know Brian is well-acquainted with that feeling too.

By the time Monday finally arrives, I’m more than ready for some answers -- and some antibiotics. I also just really want to get the appointment over and done with, so I can get back to work and finish everything that needs to get done this week. I’m leaving on Tuesday to travel to Connecticut to oversee the reshoot of all of the video we need for the tourism campaign, this time with Justin’s friend in the starring role. In the meantime, I’ve got plenty to do to prepare, and I’ve also got my other campaigns to think about too.

I love how quickly Kinnetik is growing -- especially since I joined Brian in New York and we opened up a physical office here -- but the growth is starting to become overwhelming, because while each new account means thousands and sometimes millions of dollars in revenue, there’s also a lot of work that has to be done to go along with those new accounts, and much of it falls to Brian and me. So that leads to a lot of stress, and more than a few late nights, simply because there aren’t enough hours in the workday. I don’t mind doing it, especially when I have my partner in crime there with me, but it still takes a toll -- a toll I may soon not have the physical wherewithal to pay.

I’m still thinking about work when a nurse pushes the door open and calls my name. She leads me back through a maze of hallways that I’m not sure I could ever find my way through on my own, checks my vital signs and asks me what I’m here for today. I knew it was coming, but I still have a hard time saying it out loud: _I think I might be pregnant._

Those words, along with the side note that I also think I have a UTI, lead to a lot of different tests and a whole lot of waiting around, during which my brain has plenty of time to run worst-case scenarios. I know that’s not doing me any good, but it is what it is. After giving my urine sample and having blood drawn, I end up back in an exam room by myself, where I’m left for so long that I start seriously considering opening the door and poking my head out, just to make sure they didn’t forget I was in there.

I try to distract myself from my anxious thoughts by using my phone to check my email, going through my normal morning routine, even though this morning is clearly anything but normal. I’ve gotten confirmation from everyone involved in the webseries filming, so at least that’s a go, though I’m pretty sure that spending two-and-a-half hours on a train with a UTI is going to suck. But it has to be done, and there isn’t anyone else I can delegate the task to because it’s my job to oversee it all and make sure everything goes exactly according to plan.

I’ve just started to type out a message to Marcia to confirm that everything is on track when I hear a soft knock on the door, followed by the click of the knob and the door sliding open. Immediately, I switch off the display on my phone and slide it back into my bag, while simultaneously trying to read the doctor’s face. Naturally, she proves to be every bit as difficult to read as Brian Kinney in a business meeting.

I watch her every move as she comes in, sits down, and clicks around a little bit on the computer, but I’m getting nothing. After what feels like an eternity, she turns toward me and gives me a tentative smile, though it’s small, and I still have no idea how to interpret it -- whether it’s intended to be reassuring, or just friendly, or something else entirely. I don’t know her well enough to be sure, having only been a patient of hers for a little over a year, and only coming in the office twice during that time, since I don’t get sick often.

“Have you been trying to conceive?” she asks, and I can hear the subtle note of caution in her voice, in spite of the overall casual tone of the question.

My immediate reaction is to laugh, though I manage to stifle it in the name of not looking batshit-crazy. “No,” I say, keeping my voice calm, and wishing she’d just give me the results already.

“Okay, well, it looks like you’re not pregnant.”

For a second, I’m not sure I heard her correctly, even though she just said the words I wanted her to say. Not that I want to argue, but I do want to be sure, and all of the evidence has been pointing in the direction of pregnancy, between how I’ve been feeling and the fact that my period is now about a month late, not to mention the positive pregnancy test. How could this all be in my head?

I’m still struggling to figure out what question to ask first when the doctor speaks again. “Can you tell me more about what was making you think you could be pregnant?” she asks, studying my face, which I’m sure looks every bit as confused as I’m currently feeling.

In that moment, everything I’ve been noticing over the last few weeks, and especially the past several days, comes spilling out -- how exhausted I’ve been, the bout of sudden nausea, feeling strangely emotional in situations where I normally wouldn’t, my lack of a period, and of course the pregnancy test. The entire time I’m babbling on, the doctor keeps nodding solemnly, just listening.

“You mentioned you took a pregnancy test,” she says. “How long ago?”

“Last week. I mean, the line was really faint, but it was there. And it seemed like those are fairly accurate, from what I read.”

“They are, but you also have a urinary tract infection, which I think you already knew, but your urinalysis confirms it. Blood and protein in your urine can cause a false positive with an over-the-counter test, but the blood test we did here isn’t affected by that. I don’t see anything in your bloodwork to indicate pregnancy.”

We spend the next few minutes discussing my missing period and the myriad of different factors that can affect one’s menstrual cycle as she asks about my diet, how much I exercise, and my stress levels. There’s a brief mention that I could be also starting the journey into menopause, which I’m not sure is good news or bad news, since it would keep me from getting pregnant, but would also come with a whole host of other unpleasant effects. Still, the lack of a period is typically an indication that something needs to change before more serious things start to happen, so by the time I leave the office, I’ve been advised to make sure I’m eating enough and to try to do something to reduce my stress levels. I nearly had to laugh when she suggested trying yoga or meditation, because I’ve never pictured myself as being in Rob or Ben’s camp when it comes to such things. Maybe it’s time to give it a try though, since being the vice president of a growing advertising firm means stress will probably never _not_ be a part of my life.

As I leave the office, prescription in hand for the antibiotics that will hopefully help me get over this UTI soon, I'm still feeling slightly numb. I know I should be relieved -- maybe even jumping for joy -- but for some reason I still can't quite wrap my brain around what just happened.

I navigate the subway ride back to the office on autopilot, thankful that I'm such a frequent rider that I think I could get there with my eyes closed. Once I get into our building and upstairs to my office, I settle back in my chair, just letting myself breathe for a minute.

Everything I've been fearing is now suddenly no longer a concern, just like that. And I _am_ relieved, but at the same time, I feel a little bit blindsided, even though it's good news. I've been preparing for the worst, and now I know for sure that's not happening, but that doesn't mean all of the feelings that went along with it are gone. Suddenly, I feel the pressure of everything that's been simmering just beneath the surface starting to bubble up and over in the form of tears, which soon turn into quiet sobs. Tears of relief.

I wish I would have closed the door to my office, but I didn't anticipate breaking down, so it's standing wide open when Brian goes by, probably on his way back to his own office after his morning meeting. He glances in, I'm sure just to say hello, but what he sees is clearly not what he expected. I look up at him as recognition dawns in his eyes, like he's suddenly remembered where I was this morning and what these tears might mean.

He comes in and closes the door, then moves closer to me.

"It's not--" I begin, intending to tell him that it’s not what he’s thinking, but the tears take over, despite my best efforts to keep myself under control, and I end up not being able to finish my sentence because I'm having trouble catching my breath.

"Tell me what I can do," Brian says, hesitantly reaching out for me, laying a hand on my forearm. He looks uncomfortable, but I know it's simply because he never quite knows what to do with tears and open displays of emotion. He's much more open than he used to be, but he's still Brian.

"You don't need to do anything," I whisper, my voice thicker than I’d like it to be, still not able to stop the tears that seem determined to come of their own volition, releasing all of the pent up feelings that have been stuck inside for the last few weeks while I tried to push my way through them and shove them aside.

"I know I don't… but I want to,” he says. His voice is soft and hesitant -- a tone I’ve only heard a handful of times before, and usually with Justin. “I'll do all the shit I didn't do with Lindsay. Everything Michael did with Melanie. The classes and the coaching and all of that shit. We’ll let all the heteros think we're some cute little couple."

That turns out to be the thing that turns my tears into laughter, and it makes me think of how this exchange is the exact opposite of the conversation Brian and I had last week, only he doesn't know that yet. The next thing I know, I'm trying to catch my breath for an entirely different reason, both incredibly touched that Brian is willing to let people think he's my husband, and at the same time finding the sheer idea of that hilarious, because there's no fucking way I'd be able to put up with his stubborn, high-maintenance ass 24/7. Sometimes I swear Justin must be a saint. Or else Brian gives a really good blowjob.

When I'm finally able to look up at Brian and blink the tears away, he looks a little confused, but his wry grin tells me he might have been trying to make me laugh on purpose, and I'm thankful for that. If Brian cares about you, he really does try to give you what you need, even though sometimes his actions can be a bit unconventional and not always well-received.

"No, you don't understand," I say, shaking my head and smiling while Brian looks more and more puzzled. "I’m not crying because I’m upset, I’m crying because… hell, I don’t know why I’m crying. But I'm not pregnant."

Once I’ve uttered those words -- words that feel so good to say out loud -- Brian looks every bit as surprised as I’m sure I did in the doctor’s office, though there’s still a note of confusion there. “But… the test… I thought…”

“I know. Me too. But I’m not. They did a blood test. I guess the UTI caused a false positive.”

“So, all of this is just--”

“Sickness and stress, apparently.”

Brian looks down for a moment, and I can tell he feels responsible, even though he’s not. That’s another thing about Brian -- he’ll blame himself for things that he had nothing to do with, which, given what little I know about his family, I’m sure is another one of those deeply entrenched behaviors he’ll never be rid of completely.

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault,” I say, attempting to head off his guilt trip before he can get too far down that road. “I think I just need to change some things… but I’m not sure what yet.”

Brian is quiet for a few seconds, then says, “You should go home. Take the rest of the week off.”

“I can’t,” I sigh. “I’m going to Connecticut tomorrow so we can reshoot all of that video. But I’m fine, really.” I feel like I’m giving Brian one of his lines, and I can tell he thinks the same thing from the raised eyebrow I’m getting, and the skeptical look in those expressive hazel eyes that have always been prone to telling you a hell of a lot more about how Brian is feeling than he wants to reveal -- you just have to be paying attention to see it.

“I’ll go,” he says. “You go home and rest and do what you need to do. Take care of yourself, like you’re always telling me to do. Don’t make me call Damon.” Brian gives me a smug smile, and I have to laugh, because he’s absolutely using every single one of my tricks on me, and yes, I’m being just as stubborn as he always is.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh I would. And it just so happens that I’m the one who signs his paychecks…”

I roll my eyes and reach for a tissue to wipe my eyes and blow my nose. When I look back at Brian, his smile is sincere.

“I mean it,” he says. “I’ve got the video shoot covered.”

I’m sure he also wants to make a sarcastic comment about surviving the train ride, because I know he absolutely hates the commuter trains, but he doesn’t say anything else. Instead, he retrieves my bag, which I dropped into the armchair when I came in, and brings it to me, depositing it in my lap.

“Don’t make me push you out of here,” he says, his familiar smirk back in business.

Part of me would like to see exactly what that would look like, but I don’t make him do it. I really am tired, and I know I could use the rest. So I leave willingly, though still hesitantly, and I now can say I fully appreciate exactly how hard it is for Brian to leave the office behind, even when he feels like shit. Because I do feel like shit, but I also have a lot of responsibilities, and it’s hard to turn those over -- even to someone you’d trust not only with your work, but with your life.

I spend the next few days at home, becoming well-acquainted with my bed and my sofa, and coming to the conclusion that daytime television really is terrible. Thank heaven for Netflix, though, and the half-dozen different services that will deliver takeout when I’m too lazy to leave the living room. Brian goes to Connecticut in my place, and assures me that everything is going fine -- that Justin’s friend is super charming, and that I’m going to love the videos. (He also assures me that he managed not to strangle anyone on the train for trying to “help” him, which is probably a feat in and of itself.) And when another delivery person shows up at my door with a cooler full of cold-pressed juice that I didn’t order, I know exactly where it came from, because if Brian can find a way to throw money at a problem, he’ll do it, no questions asked.

Knowing that, I’m not the slightest bit surprised when Brian calls me on Wednesday afternoon and tells me that there will be a limo waiting for me downstairs in the morning to take me to some pricey, exclusive spa where he’s booked me a full day of pampering that I’m not allowed to refuse -- “CEO’s orders,” he says.

I try to jokingly object by saying, “What if I had plans?” but he’s having none of it. And honestly, this whole thing is so Brian that it’s all I can do not to laugh and tell him how predictable he is, and how I’m so onto him. But this is what he does when he cares about you -- he gives you what he thinks you need, and leaves you no other options.

Sitting in the back of the limo, sipping on champagne and feeling like a celebrity, rather than the Western Pennsylvania girl I am, I’m thinking about all of the things I’ve realized over the last few days that I’ve spent at home. As much as I love going out and having fun with a lot of different guys, there’s a significant risk there, and this experience has solidified for me just how significant it can be. While I don’t plan to stop dating, I probably will be a little more selective about when and how often I’m having sex, because there’s no way in hell I ever want to repeat what I just went through.

And I know my doctor is right that I need to find some different ways to deal with stress. I’m not getting any younger, and the last thing I want is to be having health problems because I threw myself a little too much into my work. I’m still not sure how I’m going to make that happen, but I guess I’ll figure it out; I don’t have much choice.

We pull up to the spa and the driver opens the door for me, like a true gentleman. From the moment I step through the front door and give the receptionist my name, I’m practically swept away and into a fully immersive all-day experience that I’m not sure I want to think about the cost of, though I know what Brian would tell me: “Don’t worry about it. You deserve it.”

It takes me a few minutes to shut my brain down and fully settle in, but I know I need to, because really, who else has a boss who literally hands them a day of luxury and leaves them no choice but to take it? My only obligation today is to myself -- to relax and renew. So I make a vow to myself to let go and enjoy, and allow the water swirling around my body in the jacuzzi to carry my worries away for the time being.

By the time I leave -- after a facial, full-body wrap and exfoliation, and the most amazing deep-tissue massage I’ve ever had -- I’m thankful that there’s a limo waiting to drive me back to my apartment, because I’m so blissed out that I’d probably get lost on the subway and end up in Queens. When I step off the elevator in my building and walk around the corner toward my apartment, I see a bouquet of flowers sitting outside my door. Inside the attached card, I easily recognize Brian’s handwriting.

_Thanks for all of your hard work, and for saving my ass over and over again (and kicking it when I need it). I owe you. See you Monday. (Don’t even try to check your email, or you’re fired.) - BK_

Brian’s last sentence makes me laugh, and I’m half tempted to see what sort of rude message he’s had Damon program to pop up if I try to check it, but I don’t. Truthfully, Brian doesn’t owe me a thing; we’re friends and we take care of each other. That’s all there is to it.

The weekend includes more rest and relaxation, and even a date with a handsome lawyer from Cleveland -- though I’ll forgive him that particular transgression -- including dinner, dancing, and a surprisingly satisfying goodnight kiss, with a promise to go out together again sometime, because I’d like to get to know him a little better.

When I get back to work on Monday, Brian is in his office with a smile on his face that makes me wonder who he murdered, because he’s never that happy on Monday morning.

“What’s got you so pleased?” I ask, as I set his customary triple-shot nonfat latte on his desk and look over at his computer screen, which is displaying a website that sells office furniture. “And why are you buying furniture? We just bought most of this last year. If you need some retail therapy, I’m sure I can come up with something more useful for you to shop for, like a convertible for _moi_. Or maybe some jewelry from Tiffany’s.”

“It’s not for us,” he says, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. He pulls his lips into his mouth and raises his eyebrows, looking at me like he’s got some huge, exciting secret. “It’s for downstairs.”

“What’s downstairs?” I’m confused, because I knew that space was vacant after the tech startup that was there folded and closed up shop last month, but we have plenty of space up here, and while I don’t deny that we could use a few more staff members, we don’t really need a whole floor full of new hires for Brian to get frustrated with.

However, the answer to my question is certainly something I wouldn’t have expected.

“GoodLife Robotics. And Rob’s new office.” A grin even bigger than the one he had before spreads across Brian’s face, and I see that twinkle in his eye that appears when he’s genuinely excited about something.

“No shit! How’d you talk him into it?”

“I didn’t. He came to me. Asked me to go to lunch on Friday, and said he was ready to make a change. And that’s not the only good news I’ve got.”

“What, did Jonathan turn in his two weeks’ notice?” I kid.

“I don’t know what you have against him, but no,” Brian laughs, not giving me time to list off the reasons why Jonathan is a pain in my ass before he continues. “I hired an account coordinator. Someone who can help us out with all of the logistical shit so we can just be the geniuses behind the campaigns.”

That news is even more surprising than finding out Rob is coming to work with us, because it means Brian is giving up some of his control. But honestly, I’m starting to think that Rob’s wake-up call was a little bit of one for Brian as well. I’ve noticed all of the little changes Brian has been making -- some of them conscious, and some of them not -- and they’re adding up to a better work-life balance for all of us. So I’m glad he’s decided to hire someone to help us out, and I’m looking forward to having a little less legwork to do (and maybe a little more time to myself on the evenings and weekends).

Brian spends the rest of the day picking out furnishings for Kinnetik’s new acquisition, looking like a kid in a candy store. As a partner, I should probably be a little bit miffed that Brian made such a huge decision without consulting me, but honestly, it’s not much of a surprise. The writing’s been on the wall for a while; we just needed all of the pieces to fall into place. Now, with Rob on board, they have.

And as I watch Brian make his initial purchases and line up contractors to make a few necessary renovations, I can’t help but see all of the love and care that’s going into the choices he’s making -- how much he wants to make this the perfect opportunity for Rob, and how willing he is to do whatever it takes to make that happen. But that’s just Brian -- the Brian that only a few of us know. The one we’re all lucky to count among our friends.


	9. Epilogue

_One month later…_

When I arrive at Monetti’s, Rob, Adam, Brian, and Justin are all already gathered around a large table in the corner. Adam and Justin are talking and laughing while Nick, the owner of the restaurant, fills up wine glasses, and Rob and Brian are embroiled in a serious discussion that’s apparently about the attachment on the back of Rob’s wheelchair that Brian is leaning over to take a closer look at. I walk up to the table, where Nick stops what he’s doing and pauses to give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek before going back toward the kitchen.

I take a seat between Adam and Justin, who immediately pull me into their conversation, while Rob and Brian continue discussing Rob’s new accessory, which turns out to be some sort of power assist device that matches your pushing speed and allows you to essentially coast along hands-free, without pushing, but still stop easily whenever you want to, and can also be controlled entirely using a bluetooth-enabled watch that looks a lot like my Fitbit.

“Guess spinal tumors are good for one thing,” Rob says, huffing out a laugh. “I’ve been trying to get my insurance to cover one of these for a while now, but they’re too expensive and they just wouldn’t budge on it.” He pauses and turns to Brian, who looks ready to say something, but Rob cuts him off. “And before you say you would have paid for it if you’d known I needed it, I didn’t want you to. You’ve done plenty for me already.”

I almost laugh out loud, thinking about how Rob is probably going to have a hell of a time keeping Brian from throwing money at all of his problems, no matter how minor, now that they’ll be around each other for at least 40 hours each week. But that’ll be between the two of them to sort out.

Rob and Brian are still talking shop -- already trying to engineer ways to come up with a competing product for a lower cost that more people would have access to -- when our server appears with a basket of bread and a huge bowl of salad. Brian barely pauses long enough to thank her before he and Rob continue going on about smartwatches and possible improvements that could give them a competitive edge.

"Is this what I have to look forward to?" I tease. "The two of you constantly geeking out about adaptive tech? I can see I'll have my job cut out for me trying to make sure we actually stay in the advertising business."

"Someone has to keep them in line," Adam says, winking at me.

"Though that might be a full time job in itself," Justin adds.

"Twat," Brian mutters, giving Justin a playful shove on the shoulder as he reaches for the bread basket and puts two slices on his plate.

"Hey," Justin says. "Save some for the rest of us."

"I think someone forgot who's paying for this meal," Brian smirks. "Besides, we can get more. Honestly I'll be surprised if Nick lets me pay for anything."

I know that's been par for the course ever since Justin paid to have a ramp installed out front and an accessible bathroom put in. Nick never charges Brian or Justin for anything that I've seen, not even the catering he sometimes does for our client lunches, and Brian keeps Nick's ads running on the local television stations and in all the free newspapers and keeps "forgetting" to send the bill. But that's yet another thing that's just Brian -- do something nice for him, and he'll keep finding sneaky ways to try to even the score.

As we all chow down on what I'm fairly sure is some of the best Italian food in the city, I find myself thinking about how different my life would be had I not taken that administrative assistant job at Ryder all those years ago, working for an ad exec that I'd already been warned was extremely tough on his assistants. I didn't know what to expect, but Brian and I hit it off right away. I think he respected the fact that I was always honest with him, and I didn't just let him run over me. I wasn't afraid of him. We made a great team, and I could see, even back then, exactly what kind of person he was underneath the intimidating exterior.

That's why I tipped Brian off when Gardner Vance tried to pitch Brian's campaign to Remsen and pass it off as his own. It's why I wanted to be in on the ground floor when he started his own firm. It's why I knew with one-hundred percent certainty that he would succeed, against all odds. And it's why I knew that even after a devastating injury, he'd be back, and he'd find some way to be better than ever.

Because when you're Brian Kinney, failure isn't an option.

But sometimes, the stubborn nature that makes that statement true is also Brian's kryptonite, and that's when he needs a friend -- someone he respects, who will tell him like it is and make him listen, even when he doesn't want to. That's my role, and Justin's role, and I know it's been Rob's role too, in the not-so-distant past. And it's the same role Brian plays for me. Because honestly, we're a lot alike, and that just might be a part of our magic.

We're not just coworkers; we're friends. Maybe that's our secret ingredient -- we take care of each other. Now, Rob is a part of that too, and I couldn't be happier to be welcoming him to our team.

I also know that between Rob's passion for helping people and Brian's drive to succeed, these two will be unstoppable.

We've all had our struggles, as people do -- that's just life. You never know what it's going to throw at you. But if you surround yourself with the right people, you'll find your way out and through. And as we all sit around the table, talking and laughing and eating too much lasagna and chasing it with some seriously delicious lemon cake, I know we've all found our people. And I'm so thankful that they've come into my life.

When the cake is all gone (and Brian has finished his very own slice that Justin practically made him take, after stating in no uncertain terms that he was not sharing his), Nick opens a fresh bottle of wine for our table, and we settle in to listen to the string quartet that plays here every Sunday night, knowing that tomorrow morning represents the dawn of a new era in the life of Kinnetik -- the business Brian started with a handful of us who believed in him and his work, that's grown into a powerful ad agency with two offices in two different cities, with so much more potential growth on the horizon, not the least of which is the division soon to be known as Kinnected.

As the wine is poured and the string quartet is just starting to warm up, Brian raises his glass in a toast.

"To business, success, and to always getting exactly what we want," he says, clinking his glass first against Rob's, then Justin's and Adam's, and finally mine, with a knowing twinkle in his eye.

I take a sip of my wine and smile, giving Brian a subtle wink that's intended to say, message received. The past couple of months may not have gone as planned, and though it all worked out in the end and I did get what I wanted, I'm still not sure I could have gotten through it without the support of the man Marty Ryder warned me about all those years ago.

It's funny how the universe puts the right people in your life -- the ones who will be vital to your very existence -- even though you may not realize their significance at the time.

Sometimes we get what we want, and sometimes we don't, but there's one thing that I know for sure will always be true -- that this little family I've chosen, and that's chosen me, will always have my back, just as I'll always have theirs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for going on this journey with me! It was fun to get to write a character whose point of view I'd never written before, so I think I'll be doing more of that in the future, maybe with some characters we don't hear from too often in this fandom (while still centering Brian and Justin, of course). I hope you enjoyed it!


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